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THE WAY 

A text book for the student of Rosicrucian Philosophy 




^ 



By Freemax B. Dowd 



Author of '"'Temple of the Rosy Cross," Evolution" and 
"Immortality" 

Copyrighted 1917 by R. Swinburne Clymer 



Published at 
"Be\^rly Kaj.l" 
Quakertown, Pa. 






DEC 24 1317 

©CI.A4812T3 



fiw 1 



o 



DEDICATED TO 

OUR FAITHFUL STUDENTS 



THE WAY 



CONTENTS 



THE MAGI 

NATURE 

THE WAY OF LITE 

EXISTENCE 

THE LAWS OF LIFE 

LIFE AND FORM 

FATHER-MOTHER 

GOD AND SPIRIT 

THE SAVIOR 

LIFE 

CURSES 

CHRIST 

TO BECOME 

THE EGO 

I AM 



THE WAY 



ROLL OF HONOR 



Rev. Charles C. Brown 
Lewis P. Albrecht 
Dr. Edward H. Brown 
Frances K. McCurdy 
W. T. W. Gall 
Dr. M. C. Carpenter 
Marcia Greene 
Miss M. M. Gardner 
M. M. Powell 
Miss Ethel Savage 
Mathilde K. Glauner 
Dr. Henry J. Frank 
Catherine Cake 

E. E. Hartman 
George F. Hanselraan 
C. H. Smith 

John Donovan 
P. J. Ogilvie 
Daisy T. Grove 
Wm. Mathison 

F. A. Shoemaker 

S. Margaret Hardigan 
Charles H. Wolf 
Miss M. L. Verdier 
August Schultz 
Edward Bard&ley 



Rev. A. W. Witt 
Mrs. A. W. Witt 
Gertrude Cosgrove 
C. J. Clark ^ 
Gertrude Pelot 
Rev. J. C. Cake 
Jos. Maly 

Elizabeth K. Hosford 
Grace K. Morey 
Jos. A. Walter 
Elizabeth Walter 
Mrs. F. W. Pleister 
August Lundberg 
John C. Abel 
C. N. Searle 
Mrs. Marit Bramhall 
Clyde Barr 
Charles Gray 
Mrs. Emma Schmeiser 
Rose Mozzer 
Albert H. Brown 
W. C. Miller 
Lars Hansen 
Mrs. H. Savage 
Rufus Page 



THE WAY 



FOREWORD 



The Seventieth Annual Convocation of the educational de- 
partment of the Rose Cross Order, founded in America by Dr. 
P. B. Randolph in the year 1858, was called to convene on the 
twenty- fourth of October, 1917, to continue for a period of no 
less than two weeks. 

The reason the Convocation was called for this date was 
due to the desire that, on the night of All Souls, the Sacred Col- 
lege might be convened and that all present at the Convocation 
might take part in the services. 

On All Souls Night all were assembled in the Temple and 
services commenced with the Requiems and the solemn Invoca- 
tions, as taught by the Ancient Magi, which have been handed 
down faithfully from Master to Master up to the present time. 

At the conclusion of the services and before the Sacred Col- 
lege came to a close, the Order of Knighthood was conferred 
upon Dr. M. C. Carpenter and he became a member thereof. 

The Sacred College will hold solemn Mass for heroes at the 
front who may have lost their lives, on Thanksgiving night and 
also on Christmas eve. The Mass and Requiems will be of the 
nature of those held on All Souls Night, and the solemn Invoca- 
tions will be offered for the peace and repose of the soldiers who 
die for truth and liberty. All members of the Knighthood and 
the Sacred College are called upon to sacredly obey their vows. 

When the call was issued for the Convocation, it was 



10 THE WAY 

ordered that in place of the usual course of instructions as given 
before the members present at the Convocations, the lectures 
should be based upon the manuscript prepared by Freeman B. 
Dowd shortly before he passed to the Beyond, and which had 
not yet been issued in book form. 

This manuscript which had been turned over to M. L. Gold- 
thwaite by F. B. Dowd for the purpose of publication, had been 
given us for that purpose some years ago, but we had received 
Hierarchic orders not to issue it in book form until ordered to do 
so, and for this reason it has been held intact instead of being 
published. 

However, when the call for the Seventieth Convocation was 
being prepared, orders were received that the manuscript should 
be used as a course of lectures before the Convocation and that 
it should then be issued in book form if it obtained the sanction 
of the entire assembly. 

Orders were obeyed, and it w^as voted that this would be 
F. B. Dowd's best book, better even than the book from his pen 
which had been recommended to an American student by a 
world famous Mystic-novelist early in the year. 

This book now before the reader, and entitled as it is ''The 
Way," was to have had another title and had F. B. Dowd lived 
to see its publication would not have been for general sale, but 
only given to the students of the teachers then under his 
authority. 

Times, however, make great changes, and the valuable work 
which only a few would have had the opportunity to study, is 
now to be had by all those interested in the true Rosicrucian 
Philosophy. 



THE WAY 11 

We ourselves, think, that this book is of greater value than 
''The Temple of the Rosy Cross," "Evolution" or "Immortality," 
his other three books. 

In passing, it is necessary to state, because of the accusa- 
tions that have been made, that the title "Temple of the Rosy 
Cross" was used by Mr. Dowd in 1884, and was original with 
him, and not, as some suppose, taken from an organization now 
using that title without at any time having obtained the right to 
use it. In short, the book "Temple of the Rosy Cross" had gone 
through four large editions before the said organization had ever 
been founded. 

Light — Life — ^Love 

There is virtually no benefit to be derived from the con- 
sideration of the Rosicrucian Order prior to its establishment in 
America by Dr. P. B. Randolph in the year 1858. 

The teachings of the Order, the system of instruction, in 
fact all that is germaine is identical with the system of instruc- 
tion followed by the Order in other countries prior, and after, 
the establishment of the American branch. 

The watchword of the American Order, used by no other 
Order in the world and coined by Dr. Randolph as Grand 
Master, more than seventy years ago were Light, Life and Love 
as the three most desirable things that man could wish in life. 

These same magical works are today the light of the Rosi- 
crucian Fraternity and mil continue to be the ke)Tiote to the true 
life as long as one true Rosicrucian lives in this world of matter 
and of fact, of pain and of sorrow, of love and of friendship. 

Contrary to the mistaken idea held by countless misinformed 



12 THE WAY 



people, the Rose Cross Order does not establish Lodges since 
these lodges would be of little use except to breed discontent and 
misunderstanding. 

The Rose Cross is a mystical school, a school of esoteric 
teachings wherein the student is an individual, part of the whole, 
but in himself an entire law unto himself. 

He cannot be taught in a class with others, since he is an 
entity in himself. He must be considered as entirely distinct 
from all others and in this light must be instructed, trained, 
developed, towards Initiation. 

The "Crossing of the Threshold" is not a matter of Ritual, 
it cannot take place in groups, nor will any two be able to cross 
at the same time, because no two students will develop alike, nor 
in the same number of weeks, months, or years, and when the 
crossing does finally take place, no man witnesses it, because it 
is the Soul of the Neophyte, the Seeker, which alone is the can- 
didate and which alone must face the Terror of the Threshold. 

The Rose Cross Order in no wise condemn Ritualism, but 
in thundering tones it proclaims that Ritualism has nothing 
whatever to do with the Crossing of the Threshold, with the 
facing of the Terror, or with the Initiation and the Illumination 
of the Soul, and those who desire an inkling of what this Initia- 
tion means, might do well to study "Zanoni" by Lord Bolwer 
Lytton, the English Rosicrucian and writer who did his best to 
describe the ordeal of the Soul of man so that those who read 
might understand. 

Neophytes who take up the study of the Rosicrucian Phi- 
losophy should not expect to come to the Portals of the Thresh- 
old for a long time, nor by the help of any man, nor yet through 



THE WAY 13 



the means of a Ritual, however sublime that Ritual might be, 
but should be made to fully understand that the Soul is not 
brought face to face with the Terror and therefore does not even 
enter the Threshold until such time as its final test is to take 
place and then no man is with the Neophyte, but he, like the 
man who truly prays, according to the teachings of Jesus, must 
enter his closet alone and there face the Terror and by right of 
his internal development, be able to face and to vanquish the 
Terror, and thus be permitted to "Cross the Threshold." This 
will mean his Initiation, the entering into fellowship with the 
Brothers of the Rose Cross. 

This is a slow process, for during the period of training, the 
light within the Soul of Man must ha,ve become awakened, and 
this Light must grow and become intense, until at length it 
bursts forth in glorious splendor with a dazzling Light, and the 
Neophyte, like Moses of old, can say: "This day have I been 
allowed to behold the Fire in the burning bush, and its Voice 
spake unto me." This is Illumination, this is the Initiation, 
and readily will the sincere Neophyte be able to understand that 
this can never be accomplished through Ritualism, and that 
crowds will not surround him, for was Moses not in the wilder- 
ness and alone when he had to face the Fire and to Listen to the 
Voice of the Fire? Like Moses, so must all men face the 
Terror alone and unaided except by their own interior develop- 
ment which alone can give them the strength to meet the struggle 
successfully. 

Transmutation is the Law that leads to Initiation and not 
Ritualism. 



14 THE WAY 

Let it be understood that we do not have in mind the 
Ritualism of the Fraternities such as the ^lasons, the Knight 
Templars, or others of their class, for these do not claim to have 
an}1:hing to do with the souls of men except to help them through 
a code of ethics which should ennoble all men who subscribe to 
them. 

Our thoughts are only of the Occult Fraternities and their 
system of teachings. 

Let it be understood that the Rose Cross is not an external 
organization in any sense of the word, that it is not a Lodge in 
the usual sense, that while it has Convocations it is not the inner 
lessons which are communicated at such Convocations, but that 
only the Philosophy can be taught during these meetings and 
fraternal greetings exchanged. 

The work of the Rose Cross is esoteric and con- 
cerns the soul of each individual distinctly and separately and 
that all men who enter its portals must face their God alone. 

The Law 

''He who knows does not talk." That is the motto or Law 
which governs every true Rosicrucian. He who claims to be a 
Rosicrucian, in the words of a great Master, is "one who knows 
not the truth." He who claims to be either an Liitiate, a Master, 
an Adept, or a Rosicrucian, is never such for no true Rosicru- 
cian will even admit, much less claim, that he is either an 
Initiate or a Rosicrucian. 

Some of us are humble workers in the field, but beyond 
this, and the authority' to teach which is vested in us, we neither 
claim or admit an}thing, and thus must it ever be, for the brag- 



THE WAY 15 



gart has ever been shunned and despised and will ever be. 

To Will, to Know, to Dare, and to be Silent, these are the 

virtues of the true Brother, let all follow his example. 

Fraternally given, 

R. Swinburne Clymer. 
^'Beverly Hall," Nov. 7th, 1917. 



16 THE WAY 



INTRODUCTORY 
! 



Magi is the name of a tribe of ]Medians, which not unlike 
that of Levi among the Israelites, were set aside for the manage- 
ment of the sacred rites, and for the preservation and propogation 
of the traditional knowledge. From the Medians, the institution 
of the Magi found its way, under Cyrus into Persia, and here 
rose to the very highest importance, while at the same time they 
extended their sphere of action. 

They were now not only "Keepers of the sacred things, the 
learned of the people, the philosophers and servants of God," 
but also Diviners, Mantics, Augurs, and Astrologers. They 
called up the dead by lawful formulas, w-hich were in their ex- 
clusive possession, or by means of cups, water, etc. They were 
held in highest reverence, and no transactions of importance took 
place without their advice. Hence their almost unbounded in- 
fluence in private and public life; and also, while the education 
of the young princes was in their hands, they were the com- 
panions of the reigning Monarch. The Medianites were a 
branch of the Persians, and hence belonged to the Aryan family. 

The word magic means miracle-working powers — and 
hence the "Magi" were a class of men who dealt vdth subtle 
spiritual or mental forces in contradistinction of physical force. 
Therefore they were the priests, rulers of kings and princes. It 
is useless to speculate about the origin of anything — all that 
exists develops from seed; and although the seed is very minute 
yet the fire of it is smaller still — in fact, it cannot be discovered. 
It is so with vegetation, animal species, races, languages, ideas. 



18 THE ^^'AY 

tribes, sects, nations, and even words, or the names of things. 
All things grow, mature, bear fruit, decay, and finally die; but 
in d}-ing they give birth to something else. The Magi grew from 
some seed, sown someivhere, at some time; but histor}' is silent 
beyond the time of its introduction into Persia. There they were 
Fire Philosophers, but of the nature of this fire they were silent 
before the awful darkness of ignorance which spreads like a pall 
over the minds of men — things made to be ruled rather than to 
k7io''d.' — things fit only for toil and war. 

Is it unreasonable to suppose that the Magi had their incep- 
tion at the time when "the sons of God saw that the daughters of 
men were fair, and took wives of them?" They were miracle 
workers I They dealt with spirits, and the finer forces of things. 
It is an erroneous idea that only the vulgar ignorant believe in 
miracles. The more one knows, the greater is the awe and 
astonishment evoked by the miraculous display of forces which 
one meets at ever}' step. In vain is the oft repeated excuse that 
these things are natural sounded in ears that hear in the silence. 
It will do for the infant who is hushed to sleep by the monoto- 
nous lullaby of its mother ; but for the awakening mind the works 
of nature conceal a miracle-working power, an instantaneous, 
self-generating power, an intuitive, illuminating, light-flashing 
force, which the storm cloud opens itself to reveal to our astonish- 
ed senses. Does not our reason tell us that the power which can 
destroy a thing instantly can also produce it in like manner? 

The slow sjrowth of thinsfs merelv shows the infantile weak- 
ness of the life-producing forces in nature. Nature as a whole 
is unknown to us; we are best acquainted with such things as are 
in harmony with our own slowness of comprehension. It seems 
evident that the powers of generation have fallen from the instan- 
taneousness of thought to the slowly-mouldering minerals of the 
mountains. Knowledge is generated laboriously, by the slow 
evolution of experience and thought; but instantaneous knowing 



THE WAY 19 



is a fact, although rare, and considered almost, if not quite, 
miraculous. 

Who knows the limits of nature? Or who has seen her at 
maturity? She hides her powers from us because of our stupid- 
ity; therefore the darkness in which her power is concealed is in 
our ignorance. As intimated, the Magi grew, flourished, and 
culminated, probably reaching their highest altitude in Chaldea 
long prior to the time of Abraham and the City of Ur; and the 
tribe was on its downward trend at the time history introduces it 
into Persia. Where now is it? Its altars are all broken; and the 
fires which burned constantly thereon are extinguished. Its 
temples are more fully lost than those of Babylon and Nineveh ! 
And yet they live today in the religious cult they left with the 
Jews, although it is defaced and mutilated almost beyond recog- 
nition. Their studies of the heavens show that they questioned 
God to His face ; and where are the answers they met ? Are they 
not left in stone on the banks of the Nile in Egypt ? Do not the 
three-sided Pyramids show forth the triune nature of God and 
of man? What is stone a s>Tnbol of, if it be not eternal dura- 
tion ? What means the pictured and sculptured Scarabei and the 
black- winged Beetle that meet you at every turn in old Egypt? 
The priesthood of Egypt and the Magi of Persia were the same, 
though differently named. They were the literati, and were the 
authors of the three chapters of Genesis, upon which is based the 
Christian belief in the fall of man. 

The cosmogony of the Jews was evidently written for people 
of little power of thought, children who are amused by stories 
and controlled by fear, people who had no hand in government, 
save that of being governed, and for whom a strong government 
was necessary. And to form such a government the forces of 
nature were invoked, and named the Elohim, who made all 
things and who govern by force, and whose representatives were 
the self-appointed priests who appointed the Kings that gov- 



20 THE WAY 



erned. To such people, outside of the Magi, reason was un- 
known. To them an explanation of the laws of nature and the 
forces of creation would have been of no volume whatever. 

It were folly to more than hint at the existence of a primal 
substance out of which things are formed. To them, it was suffi- 
cient to assert the existence of the forces of nature prior to exist- 
ence, and to barely hint at the existence of nature save as a great 
darkness out of which light was invoked. These things could 
not be comprehended by the unthinking rabble, but the Magi 
knew the principles upon which they based each assertion; and 
while they wrote out the childish tale of creation in so simple a 
manner they kept close to philosophical and natural truth. To 
inspire fear, they invoked a slimy monster of the deep, a monster 
they knew, which abounded in the rivers, and devoured both 
man and beast — their enemy — as a tempter of man and an enemy 
of the Creator also, to provoke the Almighty to wrath. 

And when the awful anger of God burst forth in curses 
fearful to hear and grievous to be borne as the pains of toil, dis- 
ease, and sorrow, these things were real; and their reality 
stamped the story of creation, to the unthinking childish mind 
of the race, as the absolute truth, not to be questioned for a mo- 
ment. As such it has come down to us, as the expiring echo of 
the wisdom of the decaying Magi of Chaldea. It descended into 
Egypt, and was carried by them to Jerusalem, where it flourished 
or flickered for a season — to fall at the destruction of the temple 
into the Christian cult ; to mingle its poison with the inexpressibly 
lovely teachings of Him who said, "I say unto you that ye 
resist not evil," and who taught his disciples to pray to the 
tempter as "Our Father which art in Heaven." 

Fallen indeed are the Magi, fallen are the nations where 
they flourished, and fallen are the symbols they left, representing 
great truths — fallen into meanings they never had, and all 
through "the blind leading the blind." We are all "in the ditch." 



THE WAY 21 



Man falls not so much through action as through the inaction of 
thought and the fear of his own thoughts. 

^ ^ :^ 

The first books of the Bible are ascribed to Moses, the great 
lawgiver of the Jews. Whether he was the author or not is a 
matter of little moment; but the fact is quite evident that he was 
well versed in all the arts, sciences, wisdom, and magic of Egypt. 
As the adopted son of Pharoah's daughter, he had exceptional 
opportunities to become thoroughly trained in all their occult 
ways, which they had learned from the Chaldeans, who were an 
older people than the Egyptians, and from whom they undoubt- 
edly acquired all their knowledge, since Abraham taught them 
astrology. Moses was a Chaldean, as also were the Jews; and 
there is reason to think that the wisdom displayed by Moses, 
the magical works he did and attributed to the Lord God, were 
simply the work of spirits for whom Moses was the medium, and 
that the laws he made were simply the old, long-since-forgotten 
laws of the ancient Chaldeans, revealed to him by the spirit who 
had him in charge. 

The Adamites preceded the Chaldeans, who preceded the 
Egyptians, who were old and feeble upon the rise of the Medes 
and Persians. Of the magic of Moses there can be little doubt; 
and where the laws of magic are understood, it resolves itself in- 
to a system of dealing with spirits. What was the ark but a 
cabinet for the materialization of the spirit? And furthermore, 
of the nature of the controlling spirit, the Bible speaks very 
plainly, showing according to modem ideas what constitutes a 
true human being. Moses was woefully deficient. In fact, he 
was only a blood-thirsty demon, who, for his own glory, or to 
further his pet scheme of making a great nation of the Jews , 
deluged the beautiful land of Canaan in blood, and resorted to 
all manner of brutal and inhuman acts. 

From beginning to end the Old Testament is a record of 
magic. The tribe of Levi was set aside for magical purposes the 



22 THE WAY 

same as the magi of Chaldea and Persia were. The ark, the 
tabernacle, the temple, the dress of the priests, the sacrifices, thd 
ceremonies, the magical instruments for conjuring, such as the 
"Urim and Thummim," all point to ceremonial magic as the 
Jewish religion. No man of sane mind can question the power 
of spirits; but modern experience shows that those who meddle 
with the affairs of men are earth-bound spirits, closely allied to 
the elements of man's animal nature, such as vanity, love of 
rule, praise, and the service and glory of men who are unfit, and 
therefore unable to rule themselves. The lofty and good spirits 
do not desire to be worshipped, but delight in being of service to 
man, knowing that he is here to learn to rule himself. 

In proof of this we have the record of the Christ, who set 
aside and fulfilled the laws of Moses, of magic, and of cere- 
monial worship, and substituted therefor the law of universal 
brotherhood. It is apparent that the controlling spirit of the 
Jews gradually changed after they became established; for the 
spirit who spoke through the mouths of the prophets claimed to 
be unchangeable, and took an interest in other nations, and was 
more consistent, not violating his own commandment, "Thou 
shalt not kill," by leading to the slaughters of both men and 
animals. 

Of course, the prophets had no way of identifying the spirit 
who ordered them to prophesy. They had to rely upon the word 
of the spirit; thus Jonah was made to preach a lie. The spirit 
who controlled Moses knew that, in order to hold control of the 
Jews, they must be prevented from dealing with other spirits; 
hence the law against dealing with familiar spirits. And it was 
that very thing which destroyed the Jewish nation. The priest- 
hood, their mediums, lost their power; and the people strayed 
after other Gods. Jehovah knew that there were other spirits, as 
great as, or even greater than himself, hence he was jealous. That 
he was one of the Magi is undoubtedly true, and that he has been 



THE WAY 23 

incarnated on earth since, may be true; but, if he \Yas the gentle 
Jesus, the change in him was certainly miraculous. 

Bear in mind, gentle reader, that we have no unadulterated 
truth; for all these old traditions are the works of fallible men, 
and when they say the Lord said so and so, it is our privilege, 
and our duty, in our search for truth, to ask how they knew it 
was the Lord? In every case, a man, or a voice like that of a 
man, was the medium. 

The Hebrews descended from the ancient Chaldeans, a pre- 
historic people, that flourished before Eg}'ptian civilization. 
The Hebrew language is the same as the Chaldean, and un- 
doubtedly the account of the creation as contained in Genesis was 
originally theirs. 

Abraham was a learned Chaldean of the tribe of Eber. An 
astrologer was he, and one of the Magi, w^ho, under spirit-direc- 
tion, left the city of Ur and the land of his kindred to establish 
a new people and a new religion, the worship of one God. The 
Chaldeans had many gods; they worshipped the sex forces of 
nature, which they called El oh im, "El" being masculine, "oh"' 
being feminine, the syllable "im" indicating pluralit}\ 

The ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Scriptures has been 
tampered with, and changed to make it correspond to the Jewish, 
and more modern idea, of one God, a masculine Deity. The 
declaration, "let us make man in our image, and after our like- 
ness," certainly tells the truth as to plurality; and the words, 
"in our image," naturally suggest that they proposed making 
man in their nature, since they could have no other likeness, and 
no other way of manifesting power than in nature, wherein they 
existed. There can be no existence otherwise than in nature. 

Sex worship was once the universal religion; and the ser- 
vices to both male and female deities were equal in sacredness. 
So far as is known, the idea of the one male God and its corol- 
lary, male supremacy among mankind, originated with Abraham, 
the reputed father of the Jews, which started from what is now 



24 THE WAY 

called a spirit communication. This spirit was e\-idently like 
mortals, limited in intelligence and power, since he had to test 
Abraham h}-pnotically by a pretended sacrifice of his son Isaac 
to ascertain his faith and belief. He also secured the obedience 
of Abraham by extravagant promises, which have never been ful- 
filled, saying, 'T will make thy seed as the dust of the earth," or 
*'the stars of heaven, which cannot be numbered;'' when in point 
of fact the Jews have never been a nation of any great numbers. 

Then again, this controlling spirit never claimed to be the 
God of any people but the Jews, and he was an angr}-, warlike, 
cruel, and jealous God, worse even than a savage human being. 
In ever}- instance where the manner of his manifestation is ex- 
plained, it was through some medium, or by a voice, or through 
some conjuring, as all ancient peoples were accustomed to do. 
It is a well kno\Mi fact to all occultists that when a true clair- 
voyant gazes steadily at an object, it becomes luminous, "as the 
burning bush that was not consumed," which Moses sav/. And 
clairaudience is a well kno^^'n power. Many instances can be 
cited where a voice is heard, sometimes issuing from the stomach, 
or "the left ear," or from any object, claiming to be this, that, 
or some other thing; and, strange as it may se^m, in several in- 
stances coming under my own observation, claiming to be God 
Himself. And in all cases is manifested an h}*pnotic power of 
control over the person who hears it. The seance at the burning 
bush was h}'pnotic throughout, in vrhich the spirit who gave his 
name as "I am that I am," comanced Moses of his power, ard 
gained absolute control over him, and yet he desired to kill him 
'*at the inn." Strange performance for a God! 

But remember that this narrative is a Jewish priestly tradi- 
tion, which, in spite of its e\'ident absurdit}', in many particulars 
holds a good portion of the world in its h}'pnotic grasp even to 

this day. 

The magic of Moses has never been equalled, if we except 

the Fakirs of India, whose performances have never been directed 



THE WAY 25 



to bloody war. There can be no question as to the power of 
spirits, especially this one who called himself, "I am that I am." 
However much devout men may reverence this name, there is 
nothing more in it than any truly conscious man can claim for 
himself. What matters a name to him who truly exists? That 
he was and is an immortal being — the guardian angel of the 
Jewish people, he who loved them and hated all others — let the 
record attest ! And furthermore the universal acceptance, by the 
whole barbarous, uncivilized, cruel world, of the laws he gave 
the Jews shows their wisdom, and their adaptation to the needs 
of an undeveloped race; but these things are very far from dem- 
onstrating his title to Divinity, or to that of the Creator of the 
universe. He was too small in every way for that. 'T am" is 
common for any one to say of himself. 

Let us reason a little on creation. To create is to produce 
something from nothing. This is not claimed in Genesis. In 
the account of creation there were several things besides God in 
existence. There was darkness (1), the deep (2), the spirit (3), 
the waters (4). Now, it is a well known fact that water cannot 
exist without fire in it, which renders it limpid; and, wherever 
fire is, there is the source of light. Therefore, the materials for 
a universe were all at hand for God to fashion whatever he 
pleased therefrom — hence there is no creation, and never was. 
That which is called creation is the re-forming of the old things 
which are new to the ignorant. 



26 THE WAY 



E 

In our search for truth it is well to examine carefully and 
fearlessly the nature of every claim, every assumption, every 
declaration, and every dogma, that is put forth for belief, since 
truth is buried deep beneath the nature of things — so deep, in- 
deed, that its voice is seldom heard, and when heard is a mere 
echo of something in nature that is too often considered by 
egotism as false and "misleading." There are no voices, no 
thoughts, no revelations, from any source but nature — since na- 
ture is all, around all, and in all. 

Nature is eternally the same; and the revelations that she, 
through some finite means, voices to us today are as true as 
those given to our forefathers ages ago. The trouble is, we do 
not understand nature or the language of the past. Truth is to 
be thought about and believed in, but never known save by the 
true, loving, and fearless, never found anywhere except in the 
nature of things. There is not, neither can there be, any other 
truth than natural truth. All truth is revealed by nature and in 
nature, but not all that is revealed is true. May it not be that 
some cannot bear the light of truth? To such, darkness and 
unreasoning superstition are preferable. But in the language 
of Paul, "Let us prove all things and hold fast that which is 
good" — since things are in nature revealing truth. 

Nature needs no definition, it defines itself in every object 
and phenomenon of existence. The nature of a thing is its mani- 
festation or its outward appearance. It, therefore, is the circum- 
ference, over-soul, or body, in which is concealed the womb, or 
generative soul, of the universe and of each individual thing. 
The center and the circumference are alike hidden from us ; but 



28 THE WAY 



we are certain that things are forced from centers outwardly, as 
is the manner of birth, and also we know that the center draws 
upon the circumference for its vitalizing, or impregnation, as the 
earth draws upon the surrounding heavens. 

The soul is limited, it is not free, it is negative, the indivi- 
dualized thing, while the circumference or over-soul is unlimited, 
free, boundless, a moving positive power. Therefore, is nature 
dual, both positive and negative, male and female. The only 
way we can judge of the unknown is by what appears. Dark- 
ness is both external and internal; but the light of thought is 
within us — ^the impregnating principle of nature which moves 
the soul to generate and produce our existence, as our acts do 
fashion our lives. 

Universal nature is an unfathomable mystery, since it in- 
cludes an infinite multitude of natures, all differing from one 
another, her children. By a study of the great principles of nature 
we formulate opinions, which constitute the sum and substance 
of vs^hat we know of nature — these satisfy us, then why ask for 
more ? Of the nature of the creative principles, light and dark- 
ness, we know absolutely nothing more than that they are — and 
that they are two opposing forces, male and female, the parents 
of existence. Upon what little we know of light are predicated 
our ideas of the Father; while, on the other hand, our ideas of 
the Mother are derived from what we do not know of darkness. 

We call nature the Mother, forgetful of the fact that nature 
is both male and female, androgynous, a being we have very little 
conception of, one that hath power to be either male or female 
by its own volition. The earth is androgynous, male in winter, 
female in summer. She draws force into herself in winter which 
impregnates her for the summer's products. The alternation of 
day and night, of sleeping and waking, demonstrates this truth. 

Why wrangle about God, when all we know or think comes 
from the nature in us? Search as we may, w^e shall discover 
nothing but nature. We are constantly in contact with her, but 



THE WAY 29 



what do we loiow of her? We know this — all things are in her, 
or she is in all things, which in our way of thinking are born 
from her, when, in fact, they are of and still in her. We know 
that all motion is in nature, and that it is a universal fermenta- 
tion whereby things clash and get terribly mixed, and that fer- 
mentation is produced by the opposition of heat and cold. The 
earth and our bodies represent nature, and their operations are 
the same as those of the nature in which we move and have our 
being. 

The earth is one vast globe of protoplasmic matter — an in- 
flammable substance, composed largely of cold water in v/hich 
fire is mingled. Or, it may be that matter is fire quenched, 
lying silent and cold in death, awaiting resurrection. A spark 
of unquenched fire left therein might, in the lapse of ages, "set 
the whole pot to boiling," fermenting, throwing out steam, spirit, 
life, which clothes the earth's surface with living things. Fire 
rises up in spirit through fermentation, and transforms itself into 
vegetation, animals, and human beings; but fire unchecked by 
water destroys all forms and all life. In order to check the fire of 
earth and to prevent a violent conflagration, it is bathed alter- 
nately in darkness and in light — a dual spirit, both positive and 
negative. 

For our purpose it suffices to suggest that nature exists for 
us through a fourfold conflict of forces, viz., heat and cold, light 
and darkness, and that these four are the principal constituencies 
of all that is, even to the least atom or the loftiest being. The 
powers, characteristics, or potencies that are ascribed to God, 
Brahm, Allah, Vishnu, or any other being, are all found in nature 
and constitute the force that impregnates matter, the mother, 
the waters of fermentation, which nature so kindly provides as 
the base of all motion, life, and sensation in every creature. 
Therefore is nature androgynous, containing both matter and 
fire, the male and the female, from whose cohabitation suns. 



30 THE WAY 



planets, stars, worlds, and all animate and inanimate creatures 
are born. 

These four great principles manifest as the four kingdoms, 
mineral, vegetable, animal, man; the four elements, fire, water, 
earth, air; the four seasons, the four points of the compass; and 
in man, as body, mind, soul, and spirit. The highest knowledge 
attainable is self-knowledge, or a knowledge of one's own 
nature, which can be attained in no other way than in a study 
of these four principles as manifest in nature, the Over-soul of 
all existing things. 

To us, in our outward look at things, existence is born out 
of nature, the same as the possible appears out of the impossible ; 
or, as out of the negative appears the positive, out of darkness, 
light, out of the formless, forms, out of matter, spirit, so, out of 
our ow^n natures, as out of our bodies, appears the manifestation 
of mind, soul, and spirit. The nature of man contains all there 
is of him ,and all that is possible for him to attain. If the truth 
were told, there is no beyond to nature. Even individualized 
man is an atom in nature, which, if spiritualized, becomes the 
universe. 

The infinite multiplicity of nature points unerringly to one 
universal family, with a father and a mother as the head and 
the author of all its component elements. To paraphrase the 
Scriptures, without assuming a beginning, let us read St. John 
thus : In Nature is Light and the Light is in Darkness, and the 
Light is Darkness; and they two are one in the things that are 
made, and there is nothing made that is not made by Light work- 
ing in Darkness. 

Thus is the truth made plain, that light is the father and 
darkness is the mother in which the father works for the produc- 
tion of all the natures that exist. Now, how does light produce 
things? By being absorbed in darkness or matter. This is a 
twofold process, called reflection, wherein light is drawn into a 
vortex — the human eye or the female yoni — and in turn thrown 



THE WAY 31 

out again ; the push and the pull of all motion, the steps in walk- 
ing, the peristaltic action of the bowels, the beating of the heart, 
the succession of day and night, of the seasons, and of heat and 
cold, action and reaction always and in all things. 

Progress is never a continuous onward, upward motion. It 
starts in a whirl of the wind, or of worlds in space, or of desire 
in man. A resolution in man starts the four w^heels of his nature 
■ — mind, soul, spirit, and body — to revolving. "Wheels within 
wheels" are they, which, moving, compel him to move out, taking 
steps, each step pushing and pulling around, growing, progress- 
ing and retrogressing, living and dying. As it is with worlds, 
so it is with atoms and man. As without the eye there is no light, 
so without the yoni there can be no birth. "The all-seeing eye" 
of nature emits the light from the darkness, or separates them, 
which separation is a fermentation in the mother, or matter, of 
w^hich the outward appearance or body of man is made, the out- 
ward wheel that contains the others. 

The body is a chariot in which the real man rides as one 
rides a bicycle. Spirit circles around the body as whirls the at- 
mosphere around the earth, and the motions of the feet and the 
hands suggest spirit wheels between, which enable us to run and 
to claw" our way through life. What is an effort of the will but 
an opening of the mind as one opens his eyes, to receive impres- 
sions from without? It is the whirl that draws power into us 
from — no one knows where unless it be from the darkness or 
ignorance of our natures. All that can be known is the nature 
of things ; and the power that creates and sustains us, which we 
agree to call God, must have a nature the same as all other things. 

We know of no nature that is perfect in intelligence and wis- 
dom. The mistakes of nature are apparent on every hand. Her 
care for individuals is weak and incomplete. She is universal in 
her love, a blind and headstrong force that holds all things to a 
dead level. This is evident in all things below man, and in man 
pere se there is no progress. An oyster of today is the same as it 



32 THE WAY 



was millions of years ago, and so it is with man as a species. In- 
dividual change, but the race as a whole remains ever the same. 
While one part of it takes a step onward and upward, another 
part takes a step backward and downward. As with individuals 
so with nations, one thrives and grows, while another perishes. 
The step that pushes upward is neutralized by the one that pulls 
down, and the whirl that rushes the chariot along surely brings 
it back to its starting point — if there be such. From the individ- 
ual standpoint nature is unjust! But who made thee a judge? 
Thou fool, ignorance compels us to judge. This same nature 
we see in constant manifestation all around is mainly dark and 
obscuring to light, even as the body by reason of its opacity ob- 
scures the light of our small minds. Darkness is far in excess of 
light — the earth is dark, and the heavens above our atmosphere 
to us are black night. 

And so it is with ignorance, injustice, or evil ; they hold man 
in a whirl of necessity, deaf to his cries of mercy. It is safe to 
say that there is not a soul on earth that is free from a dark 
monster of some sort or kind. If light and darkness balanced 
each other there could be no motion, no fermentation, no genera- 
tion, and no existence. Life is a pearl of wondrous value hidden 
beneath mountains of what we, in the agony of living, call rub- 
bish. Nature is a tomb hewn in the solid rock wherein the dead 
Christ — the only ray of hope, life, and joy — awaits resurrection. 
The difference between intelligence and ignorance is all-appar- 
ent, and yet the line of demarcation cannot be defined. The 
former issues from the latter as a blaze issues from a kindled 
fire; and as a fire must be constantly fed in order that the light 
of it may be constant, so must the fires of mind be kept burning 
by the addition of such fuel as surrounds it. Evil burns. It 
produces combustion, agitation, explosion. The fires of mind 
are fed by the mysterious darkness or ignorance that surrounds it 
as an atmosphere. 

The mystery of nature expands and grows greater as the 



THE WAY 33 



light of mind increases. The wondrous skill displayed in crea- 
tion is beyond expression; but the working of it reveals its im- 
perfections as to details. While a perfect system of motion is 
revealed as to Vv'orlds, suns, stars, and planets, the seasons re- 
sulting from such motion show a gradual development of im- 
perfect action. It is true that the seasons follow each other 
systematically and in order, but cold and heat are unequally 
distributed, the rainfall is haphazard, the fruit trees often bloom 
out of season. The earth is very prolific; but sometimes she 
withholds her fruits, and famine and pestilence result. Is it 
her fault, or have the forces in which she is suspended made a 
mistake? 

Furthermore, the relationship between mind and matter is 
strained, inharmonious, and imperfect. In other words, it is 
a false relationship, whereby an eternal conflict is established 
between them, each one striving for the mastery. The excess 
of matter smothers the fires of mind, while the excess of mind 
devours the body. It is true that the Ego is placed between them 
to control, to regulate, and to preserve harmony in their action 
and reaction upon each other; but it is impossible to do so owing 
to the want of balance between these two forces. There is no har- 
mony in nature save in absolute rest or cessation of motion. So 
long as motion exists there must be friction and waste ; and such 
must be, so long as necessity exists. 

W'eakness is as necessary as strength. Suppose all were 
great, good, holy, perfect, and none were vicious, hungr}', de- 
praved, or poor, all progress or upward motion must cease and 
universal stagnation ensue, speedily followed by a rush down- 
ward to oblivion and non-entity. In fact, the universe cannot 
be without v/ant, hunger, or a vacuum, upon the verge of which 
we momentarily stand in unconscious sleep or when at perfect 
rest. The wisdom in nature is unquestionable, so also is the 
lack of it. Is not a four-legged chicken or a two-headed calf a 
mistake ? How about the Siamese twins ? or the hosts of human 



34 THE WAY 



beings that are deformed in body, mind, and soul? Is it not 
more reasonable to ascribe such to lack of judgment or control 
rather than to suppose a demoniac intent in the creative powers 
of nature? Is it not apparent that the wisdom of nature is in- 
drawn into her soul in order to make room in herself for existence 
to be? 

The evils of man's existence all come from his lack of wis- 
dom in externals; it is all centered in his soul, leaving his body 
deficient of that Vv'hich gives life and immortal power. Like 
nature, it is all in him, deep buried under the mistakes his na- 
ture lures him to make, even contrary to his own knowledge — 
mistakes which effort only can correct. Mistakes are painful, but 
pleasure arises from the effort we make in their correction. With- 
out pain there can be no pleasure, since pleasure comes from the 
subduing of pain. 

Nature is neither good nor evil; but her first-born was evil, 
as typified by the murderer Cain. Her first-born is animal life, 
the self, which has always been held as a sacrifice to the Lord, 
and which simply signifies that the animal nature is food for the 
inner man, that the passional nature must be controlled, indrawn, 
or sacrificed to expand or sustain a considerate, thoughtful, spiri- 
tual, or soul nature, which surrounds the soul or throne of the 
living God, who dwells therein. 

Nature is the mother of all things — that is, it is the sub- 
stance of which the forms of things are fashioned. Therefore, 
each thing is clothed with nature as a body or form, which fur- 
nishes sustenance for that which is embodied. Forms are made 
of and in nature, and not out of her. As there are many natures, 
so there is a multiplicity of her powers, the extent and the mag- 
nitude of which are inconceivable. W^herever a power exists, its 
nature is manifest whereby it may be known — these constitute 
existence, nature's family. 

In the Scriptures, nature is called "the deep," upon the face 
of which darkness rested or brooded, as a hen broods over her 



THE WAY 35 



egg, producing heat whereby vapor or spirit is made to rise up 
or "move upon the face of the waters," as the Spirit of God 
moved. Thus was existence formed of nature, according to 
Genesis. 

Darkness is a synonym of mystery, and, therefore, of na- 
ture, vv'hile light is a synon}Tn of revelation, and, therefore, of 
God. Although we are in direct association with both, they 
are alike mysteries to us. We come out of the waters of darkness 
into light at birth ; and light comes out of darkness in the kind- 
ling of fire, and, in like manner, intelligence comes out of ignor- 
ance in the evolution of mind. In this manner do we know that 
in the beginning darkness rested upon the bosom of the deep, and 
that it is the spirit of the great God which we call nature. It is 
impossible to define nature, and this statement is equally true of 
darkness. It has no weight, form, or tangibility. We can 
neither v\'cigh, measure, nor handle it. It has no bounds and 
cannot be limited. Light reveals it to us as a spirit in which all 
things are hidden, and in which we delve and make discoveries. 

Darkness is the ghost of real things, of which children and 
the ignorant are afraid. It is the stronghold of vice and crimes 
untold, in it all things hide; and out of it comes what little we 
know — in fact, man himself is a child of darkness. It has no 
power of itself, and yet it contains all power. It is not an ele- 
ment, nor has man any use for it. It is always the same, an 
imponderable, immaterial, non-resisting something science de- 
clares to be "the absence of light," which is a mistake, since cats 
can see in it and light comes out of it, as is shown by combustion. 
Power, light, and things not only come out of darkness, but they 
are composed of darkness. All matter is more or less dark, 
showing that darkness by some mysterious process is trans- 
formed into matter, and that all objects are forms of darkness 
outwardly, although they may be lighted up within by the fires 
of life. Darkness is weak, and things that are weak fall down, 
as matter does to a center, and sleep, gaining strength. Thus 



36 THE WAY 



does man retire to his soul and sleep when wearied, and draw 
new life from the darkness in himself. The darkness that sur- 
rounds the light of existence is boundless and infinite. It is a 
womb in which life feebly moves in process of incubation. 

Ignorance is mental darkness, and man has no use for it, 
albeit it is his nature, in which he must struggle while he lives. 
All his miseries come out of ignorance; they are his children, 
since he is wedded to it as a man is to his wife — with this differ- 
ence, that he cannot run away or get a divorce! It is a hot thing, 
this ignorance — out of it come all the hells that have ever been 
dream.ed of ! Every child that is born brings a fresh instalment 
of this infernal thing that never dies but is always being born. 
It is a night that we shudder to contemplate. Deceived by the 
little light that we have, we fail to realize that we are always 
folded in its embrace, always being slowly swallowed by this 
thing which has no sympathy, no conscience, no intelligence. It 
is a mill that grinds us fine — or rather, it is a force that compels 
us to grind and slay each other. By reason of our ignorance we 
do things that make us ashamed and that produce lust, avarice, 
w^ar, and enmity. It is the source of toil, rule, hatred, and the 
pain and the sorrow of maternity. We have no use for ignorance, 
and all our efforts are to get rid of it. All evil comes from it — 
it is the Devil. 

But from a higher point of view ignorance is necessary to 
our very existence. It is in and around us. In ourselves we love 
it as something angelic, but in others we despise it. We sleep in 
it when wearied, as an infant in its mother's arms. In fact, it 
is our mother, as the earth is. In it we take root and grow. It 
is our flesh, bones, and blood — we could not be without it. It is 
the mainspring of all action. Were it not wound up in the night 
of forgetfulness, v/e would speedily wear out. The ignorance of 
ourselves gives us courage to try. Did we know the black depths 
of our vveakness and ignorance, we would lose all faith and self- 
reliance, and cease all effort. By reason of it we are forced to 



THE WAY 37 

■ II I I . . ■ I I I II ■ I r IT -1 1-11 I iiwiiM 11 ■ 

fight for life, health, and what we need. Perhaps it is the burn- 
ing desires of ignorance that produce intelligence ! In any case 
our intelligence and our civilization all come from our ignorance. 
Were it not for our burning sins, salvation would not be possible. 
It is the beginning of progress, and the veil that hangs ever be- 
tween man and his destiny. Without it all nature would be bare 
of its garments of loveliness, the future could not be, and all 
things Vv^ould be certain, real, and eternally fixed and motionless. 

Ignorance is to man what the earth is to the sun. He works 
in it, he makes things grow out of it. We live in it as we do in 
our bodies, which we love and provide for, although we are 
ashamed of them at the same time. Curses rise out of ignorance 
— if we knew the use of evils, we could not curse or complain. 
Ignorance does not admit of comparison; it is the presence of 
light that reveals the deformity of things and makes us ashamed, 
wherefore we hide ourselves in garments and in pretense. Sin 
cannot be without the light of thought, whereat ignorance van- 
ishes as a ghost. We make mistakes by reason of ignorance — 
that is, we blunder in darkness, and must suffer for it. Why? 
To increase our power of thought — the light of all action. 

Undoubtedly, it is a fact that the superior attributes of life 
are latent in the lovv^er kingdoms and that they become active in 
man through culture. Egoism blinds us and shuts out love and 
truth. God enters man only through the lust of the animal part 
of him. All man's boastful superiority and power are merely a 
sublimation of his lower nature, a transformation of the animal 
instincts and passions upon which he is founded — the result of 
his own efforts in subduing, regulating, controlling, and incor- 
porating them into his own being. The animals are made for 
man; they are the twilight between a perfect day and an infinite 
night. They are the beginning of the dawn, they bear the torch 
of intelligence in the unerring light of instinct, a foreshadowing 
of intuition — instant knowing and instantaneous production. 
Man has a soul in his body, around which the animal kingdoms 



38 THE WAY 



crowd and take form of becoming something higher, or perchance 
of crushing it out entirely. It is out of the night the animals 
come bearing man — the light of existence. 

Existence is the womb of night, and the things that are in it 
are for the perfecting of man. He is the foetus — not half 
formed yet — of that which eye hath not seen nor mind imagined, 
mysteriously concealed in the mother of all being, whose symbol 
is the unknown darkness. No form can be fashioned of light 

alone. All things are made of darkness by the working of light. 
The earth, with all that beautilies and ornaments its surface, is 
made of dark matter. Her monuments are of granite, which 
cost much ignorant labor and intelligent skill in construction. 
And so it is with the mental and the moral worlds. Our litera- 
ture, arts, and sciences, are mere studies of the forbidding, dark 
side of existence. Our morals are hewn out of the granite rock 
of evils that wall us in. All we know is carved out of our own 
ignorance — the stupid animals of which we are made. From 
conquering, the great soul goes on conquering; but the things 
requiring his energy, skill, and patience are the evils in himself. 
They are the curses that God put upon the work of his own hands 
in the dawn of creation. 

There is no easy road to the kingdom of power. Difficulties 
meet the traveler at every turn. He cannot go around or over or 
through them, neither can he set them aside or destroy them. To 
fight darkness is vain and foolish, since one beats mighty air; 
and ignorance driven from one place appears in another. There 
is only one nature but many forms of that nature, only one life 
but many forms of that life. Man is first ignorant, next animal, 
then intellectual, lastly spiritual; and in this transition from 
ignorance to spirituality there is nothing left behind him. The 
ignorance that surrounded him at birth has become his intelli- 
gence and his wisdom by acting upon the ignorance within him. 
It is true that this transfonnation of darkness into light is a 
painful operation, but the pain becomes less and less as the dark- 
ness recedes. 



THE WAY OF LIFE 

"I am the way, the resurrection, and the life." 

— Jesus. 

Predicating existence as infinite darkness, with a small fire 
burning therein, the radius of its light would describe a circle, 
containing light, and its source as the only obvious principles in 
surrounding darkness, since the circle made by the light is a non- 
progressive fixture, the limit of activity, and hence the law of all 
formation and of all beings whatever. Now since fire cannot 
bum without fuel, it is obvious that darkness is the fuel used in 
the production of light, the same as air rushing into a fire assists 
combustion. 

There are two things in this illustration that are stationary, 
viz., fire and the outer circle, or the center and its circumference, 
since fire can do no more than draw darkness to itself, whereby it 
becomes explosive, sending out light to fill the form of existence 
called the universe, and to make, and to fill with itself all the 
things that are made. Light is the Father of life, and from his 
bosom is life sent on its way in the semi-darkness of the universe 
to enter the things that are made in darkness, and of it as into 
a way that is dark and dreary, to illuminate, and to perfect things 
that are imperfect. 

Life is the moving principle of things; but the father of it 
is the form, or the circle, above described, through which life 
must enter the way of the thing to be perfected. Outside of the 
circle of existence no living thing can be, since there is the realm 
of cold death, wherein all known and unknown things are held 
in abeyance, or held back and prevented from entering existence, 



40 THE WAY 

by taking on form in passing through one form into another, 
since the way of life is the passing of life from one father or 
form into another in search of perfection. 

Form, therefore, is that principle which takes a part from 
the whole, or which particles that which is homogeneous. Thus 
is spirit made into objective forms, by passing through the father 
form into the mother, wherein it is clothed, or rather gradually 
condensed into a form of its own, and becomes a law unto itself. 
Form is the law of being. Without form there could be no visi- 
bility of matter, no tangibility, no individuality of being. But, 
however important forms may be, in the individualizing of spirit 
and the peopling of the world and the establishing of the powers 
of government, and of all manner of institutions, form is not 
sentient being, any more than a book or code of laws is. There 
is an object embodied in forms of law; and although they are 
totally unconscious of what they contain, still they are all-power- 
ful for the control of that which they contain. Form is the law 
that governs the actions of things; for instance, the form of man, 
beast, or fowl determines its motions and the extent of its powers; 
and so it is with all forms of matter so far as cold can restrain 
heat, since forms are necessarily colder than what they contain. 
Life is the light emanating from matter; and, as there are count- 
less forms of matter, each one of which may be said to be a lamp, 
shedding some shade of light, it is obvious that life is scattered 
or broken into countless fragments, the tendency of which is to 
unite, and thus to form or create larger and more powerful forms 
of light and life. 

Without form things cannot exist ; therefore, it is the father 
of existence, and also of every individual thing, even of life itself, 
since life cannot be objectified without being confined in forms. 
It is the outline of all subjects, which it contains, as a book con- 
tains the subject matter that is the object of the book. When. 
God created the heavens and earth he made a form having an 
outside and an inside, the former being objective or masculine, 



THE WAY 41 



that is, hard, inflexible, and strong, for the resistance of heat 
alike from within and of cold from without, the latter being 
feminine by reason of its being the opposite of the masculine. 
Or perhaps it Vvcre better understood if explained as follows: 
a barrel full of water cannot move in itself on account of its 
complete fullness, and the same is true as to perfect infinite 
power. It fills iinmensity with itself. There is no room in it 
for movement except as it makes room in itself, which it does 
by hugging itself, producing heat, which opens a vacuum in 
spirit, which is the all-seeing eye — the soul in which dwells the 
Ego, I, Myself, the consciousness of being an individual entity 
that feels, sees, knows, and that by the use of heat and cold makes 
a watery body, or form, in which to enter this watery plane of 
existence. Now, reader, this is a picture of your own creation — 
the vray in which life is individualized and becomes you, your- 
self, life in a form, which it is the mission of life to perfect and 
to save. 

Life is the only begotten son of God, no matter what form 
it is in ; but the first form it enters, upon coming into this vale of 
tears, is that of the serpent; and, from that, through successive 
reincarnations it ascends by the perfecting of forms until it 
arrives at a condition wherein the form it occupies is so nearly 
perfect that life can manifest through it in all its glory. This 
manifestation is known as the Christ Life; but it is the same 
life w'hich occupies the serpent form found in the foetus of every 
human being. Life is the creator of all forms which he occupies, 
and in which he makes his way as a worm cravv^ls in its blindness, 
or as an eagle soars in the light of its piercing eye. 

The resurrection is the rising up of consciousness from cold 
death, through the influence of heat, as is obvious in the begetting 
of ofi'spring, since as far as we know they all come from death. 
Therefore, the fire of passion is the power of the resurrection, out 
of which the serpent issues, as a thought issues from the burning 
mind, brain, and body of man in the production of life for our-. 



42 THE WAY 



selves and offspring. Life, therefore, is begotten in us, and our 
souls are wombs in which it is conceived, or felt, and from 
which it is born or transformed into the consciousness of the 
forms that we dwell in ; and it is the things we feel, see, and con- 
tact that impregnate us with life, the same as the air we breathe, 
the food we eat, and the thoughts we think. In this manner do 
we sustain and make new, or transform, the bodies we occupy. 
Here is where intelligent eating, thinking, and drinking become 
involved whereby life becomes divided, or made to progress in 
two ways : the one inward, towards the soul or oneness of spirit ; 
the other outward towards cold death, in the scattering or divi- 
sion of itself by the propagating of other lives. We know of life 
only by the effects it produces in ourselves. We inhale cold air, 
which, in conjunction with heat, produces a free spirit, which 
by a further transformation becomes flesh, blood, and other 
constituents of our bodies in which life, with all its possessions, 
such as mind with its intelligence and conscious power, lies 
sleeping, awaiting resurrection. 

Life has three modes of expression, two of which have been 
alluded to as the outer and the inner : the former, leading to cold, 
is the father life; the latter, leading to heat, is the mother life; 
their mutual action and reaction upon each other opens another 
way between them. Therefore life has three modes or ways of 
expression, viz., the animal, the spiritual, and the intellectual; 
the latter being the off-spring of the two former, which are anti- 
podes, and hence masculine and feminine. 

The animal way of life needs little or no description. In 
few words, it is the life that divides and multiplies things, the 
life that propagates the species, that creates anger, enmity, war, 
avarice, and vice — a seething furnace wherein there is no rest. 
We know much of this way of life, we have sounded the depths 
of its woes ; but what do we know of its antipodal life, the father 
of it? Wliat do we actually know about spirit? We know 
that it is the essence of matter, the very vitals, or heat of it, in 



THE WAY 43 

which is life. Spirit being driven out of matter can do no more 
than return to it, being forced to do so by the pressure of cold 
which congeals, or makes matter of it, as often as it essays to 
escape. 

Heat is the complementary^ of cold, in the spirit of which it 
dwells and works, in the making of the mother of life of it. 
Therefore, spirit has two aspects: one feminine, where heat 
works upward and outward from itself upon cold, to melt, 
soften, and make spirit-mother of it, for the generation of life 
which is fast locked in the bosom of cold, the father of it, from 
which its release is not possible save by the influence of heat, 
which, rising up, extracts life from cold, vital spirit, whose only 
action is the releasing or dropping down of germs of life stored 
in his infinite bosom for the impregnation of the mother spirit 
of himself As the cold of spirit has no outside, its only action 
is upon the mother spirit, the heat of himself. 

Herein is briefly stated the law whereby man creates him- 
self. It is your spirit which creates and sustains your body by 
the propagation of new flesh, and therefore, of new life, for you 
to use and abuse as you will. But what of you ? What are you? 
And how cam^e you here in the midst, if spirit does all this? I 
answer : You are a mere thought of a mind that is as blind and 
ignorant as you are; and you cannot see or know a solitary 
thing were it not for the father dwelling in you, and who conse- 
quently is yourself in proportion as you become conscious of his 
presence in yourself. Are you not a form? And what is mind, 
but a form of intelligence in you? You are, therefore, an outer 
form, which must needs look inward to your own mind for what 
intelligence you may need, and this looking within your own 
mind sets it to thinking. Truly you are blind ; but as all forms 
are empty they are hungiy for light; and, in the effort of looking 
within the back-windows of your soul, they open to admit the 
power which impregnates your inner mind and compels it to 
bring forth thoughts that you call your own — and so they are 



44 THE WAY 

since they are the offspring of your blind, ignorant effort to 
satisfy your craving hunger for the sensation of feeling, whereby 
we know, as Adam knew Eve, by reason of which she bare pain 
(translated Cain), which she said was a man, or masculine prin- 
ciple, from the Lord. 

The outside of all forms is strong, hard, or masculine; and 
ever}^thing that reaches the inner must pass through the male, 
which of course necessitates a passing — or a birth of pain, the 
very beginning of sensation, which humanized is called Cain, the 
beginning of the human race. 

Pain is that which makes us think. It is the creative power 
of spirit, the force of gravity, which knocks us down and holds 
us down, till we rise up of our own volition. Being a thought 
of spirit, we are an emanation thereof, but not a part of it, nor 
a particle of divinity, but a thought emanating from, yet still 
connected with, source, since spirit cannot be divided, nor par- 
ticled. As thought is of the same nature as its source, it consists 
of the power called attraction, or love, and is constantly fed 
from, and by, its source, and therefore can never be deficient, or 
empty of that which constitutes it a thought of love. Conscious- 
ness is the Father of life ; but the Mother of it is the vibration of 
his unconscious spirit. Consciousness is the fire of spirit, with- 
out which spirit sleeps and upon its awakening pain is born. 
Consciousness is the only good. It is the father of all things. 
Without it you could not exist, and hence it is your father. You 
cannot act without consciousness, therefore your body is sleeping 
consciousness called matter. You wake up at birth, and your 
first manifestation was a cry of pain. Do you know the signifi- 
cance of pain? Your body is full of it. It is the beginning of 
your existence in your present form. 



Existence is and evidently always has been; but for us, in 
the limitation of sense, it begins and ends. Therefore the method 
of its beginning is worthy of earnest thought. 

The only way we can know this is by a study of the prin- 
ciple factors concerned in it; and in our thinking they are close 
at hand. Motion and rest are the father and the mother of exist- 
ence, and consequently of everything in it. In other words, life 
and death, consciousness and unconsciousness, seem to be at the 
very foundation of things. But this is merely a surface view 
of existence. A child seems to begin at its birth; but this be- 
ginning is a mere shadow, a fleeting show of consciousness, which 
flows on into youth, maturity, and old age, as one wave follov/s 
another on the ocean. Childhood is an existence, however fleet- 
ing it may be ; so also is manhood and old age. There is no per- 
manence — no fixture — no standing-place and no standard, 
whereby one can determine the nature of existence further than 
to declare that it consists of things in motion. Therefore, things 
being in motion, motion must be the m-other; and the things she 
carries in her womb are gestating for birth ! A child in utero is 
in existence as much as after its birth; but the nature of such 
existences differ very materially. We exist, and we have always 
existed, but not in the same manner or form as now. We descend 
from Father to Mother, and from her to the solid earth, by reason 
of force, which compels us to move on from one stage of being to 
another. We descend to the mother, by reason of force; and 
from the mother in like manner, therefore existence has four 
prime factors, viz.: Force (1); Motion (2); Forms (3); and 
the stuff they are made of (4). These four factors, therefore 



46 THE WAY 



constitute existence; and, if any one of them be lacking, exist- 
ence cannot be. It is vain to ask for a first cause of anything. 
There is no first ! Motion springs from the union of positive and 
negative forces, which are equal in power if they were ever at 
rest; but, as it is the nature of force to exert itself, they never rest 
but strain at each other, giving and taking, pushing and pulling, 
slowly revolving around each other till the equilibrium of the 
forces is disturbed ever so little, whereat this circular motion in- 
creases to such an extent that the two forces are so far thrown 
apart as to burst the cell in which they exist into two other cells, 
each one as perfect as the original, and containing the same 
forces — the same as a child inherits from its parents. 

It is vain to ask how these two forces become locked together 
in cell formation. As well ask a particle of lodestone where it 
gets its power, or the seed of anything which sends force in two 
directions, up and down! We know of no self-existent thing. 
Everything descends from some pre-existent principle. Even 
existence is the effect of one preceding it. We are children of a 
previous race — ^possibly we are the same race slightly modified. 
As Jesus said: "I and my Father are one." If cause and effect 
are the same, then is existence a whirling round and round, as 
the wind does — a repetition of the one, and "nothing new under 
the sun," as Solomon said. We exist because we have previously 
existed. 

But how, why, and for what use, is all this display of power, 
matchless beauty, and glory ? It is not a vain display of Egotism 
to assert that all is for man, for his use, benefit and glory, if he 
only knows how to use them; for, if there is an intelligent being 
superior to man when he is at his best, these things can be of no 
use, benefit or glory to such being. Power cannot benefit itself 
— it is weakness and misery which are benefited. In view of 
the incomprehensible intelligence and power manifest in exist- 
ence, man, as we know him, is fallen far below — aye! even far 
below his own thought of it. 



THE WAY 47 



Man is a spirit in nature ; and it is not the form that makes 
him man — he is man whether in a form or out. The nearest 
approximation to a definition of nature which is at all reason- 
able is, that it is the incomprehensible spiritual womb of the 
universe, in which all things are gestating as for birth. It is the 
infinite over-soul — a universal cell, inclosing, embracing, and 
overshadowing us with a canopy star-gemmed, and incompar- 
able in grandeur and beauty, calling us upward to an existence 
in a nature beyond the sun and stars, to the source of power. 
Do we not know that power is above us? The dropping rain, 
the falling dew, the burning sun-rays tell us so! The above is 
eternally the same, it is unchangeable — without beginning and 
without end — speaking always of immortality and glory. Its 
azure depths, stretching away beyond human conception, are 
full of super-conscious positive power, which descending, bap- 
tizes matter with a breath of itself, thus becoming natural. 

Spirit becomes form in nature. It does not enter into form 
as one enters a house, but it becomes form. Therefore all things 
are spirit in a different state or condition. 

It follows then that the law of Being and of Becoming is of 
propagation, and not of creation. Man does not create power or 
love. He simply propagates it in himself as nature does, and it 
grows. The whole universe is full of objects, which contain 
power in a greater or less degree of activity, which in the high- 
est manifestation is known as conscious life. 

The gigantic mountains of rock, earth, and mineral are full 
of sleeping power, around which spirit unceasingly whirls, 
moulding, softening, kneading, and rendering it into protoplasm 
— a cell-producing form of matter — in which conscious life first 
manifests. All matter is protoplasmic — that is, tending through 
decay to become protoplasm. Matter is composed of atoms, which 
are cells containing life, being unconscious or inert in solids, 
gradually becoming conscious as they become active in the pro- 
cesses of sublimation, whereby they become alive in protoplasm. 



48 THE WAY 



Protoplasm differs in different substances, and produces differ- 
ent things according to its nature. 

The protoplasm of water produces mosquitoes, that of 
cheese and putrid flesh, worms, etc., etc. Wherever there is 
decay the processes of sublimation are going on preparing a 
receiver in which life can deposit itself and become some form 
of consciousness. Here, in a diffused or formless state, does life 
gather itself together, by concentration, and take the form of a 
cell, germ, or seed, which, by division, produces matter, which 
does not give up its life in the making and supporting of forms 
in any other way than by softening and dissolving, or becoming 
protoplasm. Food in the stomach imparts its life to the body 
only by becoming protoplasmic. The body of fruit and grain 
when softened is protoplasm, dead flesh softening in the sun 
becomes the same, out of which living things crawl. Cells con- 
taining life in some form — crawling, flying, swimming, walking, 
or merely vegetating — are formed in protoplasm. A hen's egg 
is a fair illustration : it contains protoplasm, with a minute germ 
in it, which, under favorable circumstances, produces a fowl. 

The earth is a cell, which the ancients called an ''egg of 
night." It is androgynous — that is, it fertilizes itself, as all 
primal cells do. In regard to this subject, Rev. Henry F. Os- 
borne, LL.D. — "Da Costa, Professor of Zoology, Columbia Uni- 
versity, Ex-President of the Marine Biological Laboratoiy 
Trustees" — in an article in Harper's Magazine for March, 1902, 
says: "Partheo genesis, or the development of a female egg, 
without the access of a male element or spermatozoon, had long 
been known among various lower types of animals, instances are 
to be found in the bees, social wasps, Bomhyx psyche, Daphnia, 
plant lice and others." A hen lays eggs without contact of a 
male, but they are not fertile and therefore will not produce. 
But we have many instances of androgynous animals among 
which are the Molusca Echinus, shell-fish, oysters, snails; they 
produce their kind but there are no males. And it is asserted 



THE WAY 49 

that the sacred Black Beetle, or Scarabeus of ancient Egypt, fer- 
tilizes her own egg which she encloses in a ball of manure, and 
rolls it to some pool of water wherein she plunges it, leaving it to 
hatch. — Query, is this the origin of Baptism in water? — In view 
of these facts androgynous females are possible in the human 
race as well as among what we are pleased to call "the lower 
types." 

May it not be possible that the division of Love into male 
and female weakens the female power of generation, whereby 
intelligence is generated at the expense of love, intuition, health, 
power, and longevity? May it not be possible that these "lower 
types" — these white-blooded animals — are really purer than the 
human race? In reality what do we know of lije? It moves 
like a great wheel, round and round, one-half of it, or possibly 
a very small section of it, in the light, while the other part is 
deeply submerged in opaque darkness, into which forms of con- 
scious life are constantly being plunged as the wheel goes round. 

The little section of the wheel that is in the light is what we 
call conscious existence, while tliat part which is twilight is sub- 
conscious existence; but beneath the wheel, where there is no 
light, is unconscious existence. Furthermore, tlie over-soul of 
these, the surrounding area of life, is the infinite super-conscious 
existence or life. This fitful life we live in is mainly sub-con- 
scious. We sleep a part of our time, and most of those who sleep 
become almost entirely unconscious; then again, those who are 
wide awake in material things are asleep in spiritual things, and 
are therefore living in a sub-conscious existence or state of being. 
Man rises and sets as the sun does; and nations, races, peoples, 
governments, and worlds follow the same rule ! Who remembers 
what he has been, in the far away deep buried past of which we 
have no history? And yet, we were there! Life has its orbit 
as worlds have ; but who can compute its cycle ? It moves slowly 
up through mineral, to assume the form of soil; and from soil it 
becomes vegetable; from vegetable, animal; and then the vast 



50 THE WAY 

universe of animal life centers itself in man... In doing this it has 
left nothing behind. It takes the spirit of all lower things to 
make man. We have left nothing behind but the jorm of those 
things we have been. We have in us the wolf, the hyena, the hog, 
tlie vulture, the sheep, the goat, the eagle, and monsters of the 
deep — all! all! are here, in these bodies, minds, and spirits, 
poisonous reptiles, the infusoria of water and air, and the white- 
blooded molusca, wherein life first became conscious, as it 
emerged from the waters of the great deep. All these, and more, 
are here combined to make the nature of man. Are we not sur- 
rounded by them all our lives ? Do they not influence us, form- 
ing our characters as the womb forms the child ? In fact do not 
these lower natures form the over-soul of humanity? And do 
they not constitute the nature of all men ? Yes I indeed 1 



£ 

Spirit is perfect. It encloses all laws and the object of their 
existence. As spirit is boundless, it has no external laws. All 
lav;3 arc in spirit, one of which — the great first law of all bein;^ 
— is tlie law of attraction, the soul of spirit. All motion is 
according to law, and is governed by law% therefore law' must be 
the greatest of all. The function of law is to govern that which 
it is in. And, therefore, as law is for the government of the 
motion of spirit, it must be in motion, but still connected with 
spirit which moves. As motion presupposes an object for motion, 
such object must embrace and include in itself the motion and 
the law that produces it. 

But if law is the creator, the maker and the regulator of 
things, where does man come in? It is said God is spirit, but 
what is man ? Where does he come from, and what is his object 
in coming ? Is he made by law ? And is he made to be as he is, 
and to do as he does, by fixed, permanent, and immutable laws 
over which he has no control ? Or is he the prime moving factor 
of his own existence? Is he the law of attraction that objectifies 
and atomizes his own spirit into flesh, blood, and bones which 
rise up, walk, and speak, as no other thing can? 

Man evidently was the last thing to appear on this earth; 
and, therefore, the inference is that he is the inmost of the inmost 
of all the laws of his o\\ti being ; and hence he is the first and the 
last manifestation of the law of life on this earth. There are 
two modes or laws of being. The first is attraction, the law- of 
all involuntary life; it has to do only with the involving of life 
in the strange, uncouth, and wretched forms we meet on every 
hand. Such forms of life exist automatically, or because they 



52 THE WAY 

must. The other is the law of volition, or the power to live be- 
cause they will live. The former is the father of the latter, as the 
animal is the mother of it. 

Man, as we know him, is made by laws that are made for 
him, in imitation of which he makes laws to govern others; but 
the true man — the man we do not know, but of whom we vaguely 
dream — is the law of himself, him who wills to be and is what 
he wills to be. Law is personified and objectified in material 
things by the will of man. Therefore the object of the creation of 
a thing is mirrored forth in the object that appears to us, since 
all objects express the laws that made them. Man has a mind 
so arranged as to reflect the laws that are in himself externally; 
and he sees that which he feels in himself as an object of love 
and worship outside and remote from himself. For which reason 
the feminine in ourselves is objectified, or reflected upon, in the 
mind until we worship that which is really in ourselves. And so 
i: is \\'ith the three great laws of our being. And so it is ^vith the 
fountain of power in ever}- living thing — ^the three laws above 
described as heat and cold, the mother and the father of motion, 
which is the life of things. DvNelling in man they are, by motion, 
projected outward and mirrored in the heavens above, and called 
'*the God-head" — Father, Son. and Holy Ghost — corresponding 
to cold, the strong outside, that which encloses things, wherein 
they are made into li\ing entities by heat, the Ghost, or spirit, 
of the immortal entit}* called man. 

Therefore it is obvious that cold is the outer law, or form 
of all government, in which is concealed the real object of govern- 
ment itself, that is, the protection of life. The most powerful, 
the most comprehensive and self-complete spirit kno"\,Mi is the 
heat of man; and cold is the body of it. Heat is not substance, 
neither is it substantial, nor subject to formation; but it is the 
ghost of substance that completely and wholly fills the entire 
man, for which reason it is called a whole, or '"the Holy Ghost'* 
— such is the changing of expression. 



^ THE WAY 53 

To be whole, is to be complete, perfect, holy. Heat is the 
feminine part of man; but cold is the body of it, the only part 
that can subdue, control, and limit her action to the production 
of only one other law — the inner law of liberty." — allegorically 
personified in Genesis as the serpent, who certainly took upon 
himself the liberty of disclosing the hidden secrets of the maker 
of the Adamic form. 

It is certainly worth while to consider the origin of law; 
and in order to do so vre must understand the origin of human, or 
man-made laws, because natural laws are personified in human 
laws. ]Man makes laws to govern unruly elements that constitute 
the tribe, nation, or the body politic, which stand in the same 
relation to the laws as our bodies do to our minds. Therefore, it 
is evident lavrs are the workins; of interior forces in the bodv 
politic, as it is in the hrnnan body. In other words, man makes 
the laws that govern himself; and they originate in himself, and 
not at all outside of himself. 

\\'e are not composed of outside influences at all, except only 
as they make the heat of fire burn more fiercely in us than is 
health-and-lif e-producing ; but, on the contrar}-, they consume 
us, and destroy our self-government. In the soul of man there 
dwells the principle of life, which Jesus called the Father. It is 
the origin of all that is, or that can be; and it is the same in all 
souls, or bodies, which grow, or are expressed, out of itself, as 
words are uttered, expressing the meaning of him who speaks. 
Our flesh is the word of our thought; therefore, thought is the 
Father of the spoken word which expresses the life in man, de- 
claring 'T am what I am, and I \\dll be what I will be."' Our 
flesh is the word of our thought; and, therefore, the words we 
speak constitute the way in which life moves in the making of 
our bodies. 

If we speak good words they make us feel good, which, of 
course, afi'ects our flesh and blood, as well as that of others. 
Therefore, the ^^T)^d that makes man an undying, immortal being 



5 i THE WAY 

— the word that each one must utter for himself, the word that 
draws God into our flesh, and that makes Christ in, and of, each 
one of us — is the realization and the utterance of a life that is 
one with all life. 

It is impossible to conceive a center without a circumfer- 
ence; and it is also impossible to conceive of a universal spirit 
with a center, since the universal has no form or center. In 
order to arrive at truth we must keep in sight of what we know. 
It will not do to assume a character for spirit that we know noth- 
ing about. Spirit exists, and although it is invisible and im- 
ponderable, we know it the same as we know mind, which is also 
invisible. We know matter because it is visible, and appeals to 
our senses. It has weight, form, size, dimension, center and cir- 
cumference; we can measure, weigh, handle and use it, which 
we cannot say of mind or spirit, except so far as use is concerned. 
We use both mind and spirit, although we do not know the ex- 
tent or limit of either, or our power over them. The invisible has 
no limits, bounds, circumference or center; and spirit, being in- 
visible, has neither. Spirit, therefore, has no particular center, 
or soul; but all objects are centers in space, and have souls in 
them, out of which invisible spirit moves and circles, forming 
spheres around each, as God formed the heavens around the 
earth in the making of it. 

Obviously, mind and matter both exist ; and it is equally ob- 
vious that former grows out of the latter. And how do we know 
tliat spirit does not grow out of the latter, and how do we know 
that spirit does not grov.- out of mind the same as mind grows 
out of matter? By analysis, the coarsest of matter may be 
resolved into spirit, which is known to consist, as matter does, 
of different degrees of density, and of power, as, for instance, 
wind is spirit, and so is light, heat, steam, the aroma of flowers, 
electricity, anger, love, jealousy, or any subtle element which 
issues from matter, and which requires restraint in order to be 
of use. That which restrains and governs spirit is the law of it; 



THE WAY 55 

and as the heat of matter is its spirit, so is cold the law that gov- 
erns both matter and its spirit. We know that the law of attrac- 
tion, or the affinity that atoms of matter have for each other, 
by reason of which they cohere, or embrace, is found only in 
matter; and hence it is a material law for the restraint and con- 
trol of its subtle spirit, the escape of which would deprive it of 
all life and power. Attraction is not the property of spirit, but 
it is the power of matter which draws spirit from cold, which is 
the great reservoir of vitality, energy, or life. For this reason, 
primal love is the law of life which controls and draws spirit into 
all forms of matter, to keep them full and complete with life and 
power. 

This is the law given to Adam, ''Thou shalt not'' — the law 
of the self and not that of the spirit, which is free to love, and to 
be what it wills to be and to do. Spirit is free, it is not law, it 
binds nothing, it restrains nothing, it loves freedom. Spirit is 
not love ; but it is the force that love sends out of the l^ody by an 
effort of the will in looks, speech, gesture, and action. Spirit is 
not a body of anything, neither is it lovely nor fascinating; but 
it makes those it dwells in attractive, beautiful, fascinating, or 
extremely ugly and repulsive, according as they are warm or 
cold. The force that makes spirit active and powerful is the law 
that exliausts, and causes a re-action, or an involuntary shrinking 
upon itself, as if cold. This is the law of weakness, lack of 
power, the law that turns the life of spirit back to its source for 
a fresh supply. This law is called sleep or death, wherein in- 
voluntary life becomes broken up in spirit, as dust in the wind. 
But the volitional life, the cool, tranquil life of considerate 
thought, makes its own law out of the cold of its own body. 

It is philosophically true that a unit, whether an object or 
the law of an object, cannot produce its kind without the help of 
another. Laws, like human beings, are male and female, and 
propagate their kind in like manner, the higher, stronger, and 
less receptive being the male; while the lo^ve^ law, the material 



56^ THE WAY 



containing animal heat, is the female, or mother-law, which is 
expected, in the course of evolution, to produce a law that is 
superior to either parent. In this manner does the law of sleep 
receive vigor, which begets life, and darkness receive an impulse 
from surrounding light, which kindles the light of intelligence 
in itself, a light far superior to the light of day. Extending this 
symbol to include the laws that make man, as we know he is 
made, we perceive that the laws which combine to produce man 
are far inferior to those which in him combine to make the mortal 
body a law of itself, as well as a law in itself. That matter is a 
receptacle of intelligence is obvious from the fact that it is made 
intelligent by the presence of life in it, which is its body or law 
that controls it. Without life in matter it has no intelligence, and 
hence is not intelligent. The same is true in regard to cold. If 
it have no heat in it, it has no spirit, and hence is not spiritual, 
but remains the law that embodies, or gives, form to matter. The 
same applies to oxygen. If it have no hydrogen in it, it does not 
become water, but remains cold, while hydrogen makes water of 
cold, if it remain therein. Cold and heat are laws of life, the 
combining of which makes matter of cold, the body of life, while 
heat remains the inner law that generates it. 

The existence of one law proves another of a higher or lower 
nature; and the high law is the male, or begetting principle, 
which enters into the lower, and begets therein another law 
superior to itself. In this manner evolution, or eternal progress, 
alone is possible. The lower law is fixed and permanent; but 
the higher law is spiritual, that of the freedom of the human 
will. We are free to will as we please; but the body composed 
of cold, dead, and dying matter is the lower law which holds life 
in bondage until he makes another law upon wliich to step 
higher Whatever life does for you is done in your body for the 
purpose of making it a permanent habitation for his own in- 
dwelling, and for your own well-being. Without life you are 
nothing, with life you are a power for good. Man becomes im- 



THE WAY 57 

mortal by rising step by step in the scale of power; and these 
steps are the laws he makes, by which to regulate his own con- 
duct. 

The lower law of your being is what you know of yourself. 
Upon this you must stand while scanning your past conduct. 
You find little to be proud of; but very much you are ashamed 
of, very much you would gladly forget if you could. You stand 
here, naked, before your maker, who asks you the why and the 
wherefore of your actions. The only witnesses are simply in 
yourself. The judge and the accusers are face to face with you 
in your own conscious soul, where all your failures, weaknesses, 
and the wrongs you have done to others are clamoring for a for- 
feiture of your title to life, as the only penalty equal to your 
abuse of the life of yourself, and of others. Before this court 
in your own soul, you cannot do otherwise than plead guilty; 
but a voice is heard before sentence is pronounced, asking for 
a stay of judgment upon the plea of irresponsibility of the self- 
confessed sinner. Said the speaker: "This form which stands 
before you this day is not guilty because it is not capable of either 
thought or action of itself. It is a mere machine in which life, 
or some Devil that has power, makes a temporary abode, and 
makes it think and act." I say that the power that makes this 
image violate the law alone is responsible for what is done, and 
the only thing that should be punished. This thing before us is 
scarcely worthy of the name of man, by reason of his ignorance 
and weakness. He does not know how to think, nor what to 
think of, nor how to resist temptation, by reason of his defi- 
ciences. Who made this form? And who makes it think and 
act ? You say he robbed you, sir ! of your liberty, or your proper- 
ty ? And you, sir ! say he took your life ! Admit it, for the sake 
of argument, but, sir, how came you to have life, property, or 
intelligence ? Are you not one of those fellows that make things ? 
And do you not know that you made him think bad thoughts, 
and steal, rob, and murder ? If you did not make his form, you 



58 THE WAY 



have helped make it act by uniting with the force that is in him, 
which is of like nature unto your own. Who led this being into 
temptation? You, sir, who have things that he wants, and can't 
get. Is he responsible for what he does, if he is made to do as 
he does? "The woman that thou gavest to be with me, gave me 
of the fruit, and I did eat." "And I," said the woman, "was 
beguiled by the serpent," that you made, my Lord, and so it is 
up to you, w^ho make things, to shoulder the responsibility of the 
way things work. In taking the life of this image, now on trial 
here, what do you do to the image? You simply remove its 
power to enjoy and to suffer. And what do you do to the life of 
this image, if you make it get out ? Why ! you simply scatter the 
life into air, water, light, and uncounted myriads of maggots, 
crawling w^orms, and noxious vapors which exhale from putrid 
flesh. Who is responsible? You, who make things, or the things 
tKat are made to suffer, and do what they do not want to do? 
What good does it do to force life out of things ? It immediately 
springs up in something else. Life is the creator — it cannot be 
punished. It is up to you, who judge others; for by your judg- 
ment do you make the misery, want, and crime of those you 
judge. Charity does not judge, it finds an excuse for those who 
do wrong, therefore, it searches for the good that is the life of all, 
and in that little good does life beget a higher law, productive of 
a greater good, and higher power. 

In this manner is intelligence produced in ignorance, and 
intellectual life takes the place of animal life. But more prop- 
erly speaking, ignorance transformed becomes intelligence, or 
animal life becomes intellectual, or the life that is wholly due 
to will, or, speaking ethnologically, the transformation of the 
serpent of the human foetus into a human form, manifesting both 
animal and intellectual life, into a spiritual form manifesting 
intuitional or the Christ Life. 

There is but one life, ranging from the lowest, darkest, and 
most inert forms, up to the highest, brightest, and most power- 



THE WAY 59 



ful form of life conceivable. And whatever we may believe 
about the descent of the Divine into animal human natures, or 
whatever we may think about God and his creations, and his 
"plan of salvation," etc., we absolutely know this irrefutable 
fact, that we all enter this world at the lowest ebb of the tide of 
life, and ascend toward its flood by steps that advance and recede, 
steps that carry us out into a boundless ocean of life, of Vv^hich 
we know nothing, a future life from which we, by introspection, 
look inward, at the past, making the living eternal now, upon 
which we stand, as upon solid ground. We stand today upon the 
life we lived yesterday, while we make today what we will be 
tomorrow. And whatever changes we may make in our surround- 
ings, our bodies, our minds, or our natures, consciously we are 
the same. 

The outer appearance merely gives to the inner, the newly- 
formed flesh pushes the old flesh out of its way, as the serpent 
changes his skin. This is verified in all womb formation. In 
the first place albumen is changed or transfonned into proto- 
plasm, called the placenta, in which the foetus is form.ed and of 
which it is composed, which in turn gives place to the worm-like 
or serpent formation, which is gradually transformed into a 
human being. I say transformed, because in each instance the 
change is complete from one form to another, except that, in 
approaching the human form, transformation is not entire, as 
the placenta is not all absorbed in the child-form. 
This is the law of evolution. A constant begetting, conception, 
and gestation is kept up in every living, breathing, thinking 
being, gradually producing new flesh, blood, bones, and form, 
which pushes off the old, exhausted, worn-out body in the same 
way that a child emerges from the placenta, or the serpent from 
his old skin. We do not stop growing vvhen born; and our 
grov/th in this animal life is as it were in another womb, from 
which we v/ill be born into another life, either higher or lower, 
warmer or cooler. The over-soul encloses each one qf us, as a 



60 THE \\-AY 

womb does a foetus. It is cold above, below, and around us; 
but heat is within. Cold contracts upon us; and we respond in 
like manner, which causes the breath of life to rush in and out, 
as the diaphragm contracts and expands, from the action of heat 
within, and its reflex action from \s*ithout. Therefore, we are 
reflected beings, emotional by reason of internal heat, and, on 
the contrar}-. cool, calm, thoughtful, reasonable, tranquil beings, 
by reason of outer cold. Cold freezes even running water — aye, 
and hot water also. It is that force which fixes things, and 
renders them hard, solid, permanent. It is this which the Hebrew 
prophet, Isaiah, alluded to, in sa}-ing. Lo, I am God. and I 
change not, therefore. }e sons of Jacob, are ye not devoured/' 
Xow, ever}' htmian being is composed of these two antagonistic 
principles: cold issues from the li\'ing will; heat, from our burn- 
ing, devouring emotions. Ob\'iously, then, the will takes hold of 
the over-soul, the infinite reservoir of power, life, and its intelli- 
gence; while heat is kept separate from cold by the form it is 
confined in. and only coimects therewith through the will, as 
the embr.o is connected with the womb by the placenta. Will, 
therefore, is the power that regulates the action of both heat and 
cold, and hence is a greater law than that of attraction, which 
simply limits action to equilibration, considering will as the 
foundation, or mother, of another law of even a higher life than 
that of thought, or the intelligent consideration of phenomena. 
Let us ask ourselves what is the male coimterpan of the will, 
which shall, in the progress of the race, beget a higher law, or 
power, in the ^sill, than that which produces our power to think 
and reason. In other words, is there any power greater than 
mind? And if so, how can man acquire it? 



LIFE AND FORM 

All existing things depend upon form for power to appear. 
Without form we are nothing. As the pendulum of a dock 
depends upon, or hangs do\s'n from, the works, or machinen*, of 
the clock, and not directly from the outer frame work that sup- 
ports the mechanism, so is life dependent, not upon the frame 
called the body, but upon a form of work within the body, known 
as the soul. Unlike a clock that is wound up by seme outer 
intelligence, the works in the soul of man are continually wound 
up by its o"\^Ti motion, the same as the earth makes a magnet of 
itself by continually winding. Time and life are the same; and 
upon the life of the soul depend its time-keeping qualities and 
the durability' of the form it works in. Life works the same as 
the soul works, out of which it issues on its eternal way. A form 
is that which draws or gets life into itself. A vacuum in the air 
produces motion, and what is motion but life? And what is 
vacuum but a form ? And upon that form depends the swinging 
of life's pendulum, which, in time, takes steps as a man does — 
swinging his feet as he walks. There is no beaut}' or grace of 
motion without form, neither is there any progress without change 
of form. All motion originates within, at the ver}' center, which 
is like the turning of a wheel around a stationary axis, such axis 
being the original form of the circle the wheel makes in its revo- 
lutions. 

This to some may seem visionan,-; but no pendulum can 
sway from side to side, without the turning of a wheel, to which 
it is attached; and no man can take steps of progress with feet 
or vdth thought, unless a resolution be formed, or a wheel turneci 
in himself, which is ^'irtually the making of a form for his own 



62 THE WAY 



indwelling. It is easy to understand the working of the elements 
in a body after its formation; but no one can comprehend the 
working of incorporeal elements, except by the assumption that 
they work in a spiritual form, which shows that creation is pri- 
marily mental, and that one is continually creating and re-creat- 
ing the form one lives in, by his own resolutions, or the revolution 
of the one great wheel of his own soul. 

To reduce this simile to what we know, let us call the axis 
around which the wheel revolves, and from which it receives its 
motion, or its life, the father, not of the wheel but of its life, 
while the wheel we call the mother, since it is that which moves, 
and in which life or motion is generated. The trouble with us is, 
we fail to see things as they really are, because w^e are always 
looking at the form or the face of the clock, instead of its interior 
formation. We see the motion and form of matter, but deny the 
prior existence of the power that forms and moves it; and in 
tlie consideration of this problem modern scientists have ad- 
vanced the idea of the spontaneous generation of matter, since it 
is a well recognized fact that matter and spirit are different 
names given to the appearance and non-appearance of the same 
things, since power underlies all phenomena. Power becomes 
visible in the material form of things, while it becomes \asible 
in spirit only by the motion of that which is invisible. By the use 
of the miscroscope, scientists have discovered an otherwise in- 
visible speck, or molecule, of albuminous matter, to which they 
have given the name Moneron, which is described by the cele- 
brated Dr. Haekel in his work, "The History of Creation," Vol. 
1, p. 185 ff. 

He says: ''We have, before this, become acquainted with 
the simplest of all species of organisms in the Monera, whose 
entire bodies, when completely developed, consists of nothing but 
a semi-fluid albuminous lump. They are organisms which 
are of utmost importance for the theory of the first origin of life. 
Take the simple method of propagation of the Monera, by self- 



THE WAY 63 



division, is, in reality, the most widely spread of all the different 
modes of propagation. A pinching-in takes place contracting 
the middle of the globule on all sides, and, finally, leads to the 
separation of the two halves. Each half, then, becomes rounded 
off, and now appears as an independent individual, which com- 
mences, anew, the simple course of vital phenomenon of nutri- 
tion, and propagation. When the moneron moves itself, there 
are formed on the upper surface of the little mucous globule 
shapeless finger-like processes, or very fine radiated threads. 
These are the so-called false feet, or pseudopodia." 

So much, by science, for the theory of spontaneous genera- 
tion. But science fails to reckon with that which encloses the 
Moneron, which is simply a seed planted in its surroundings, 
whatever such may be, either earth, water, air, or electric light 
of the over-arching blue sky. 

Heat lies dormant in cold, in matter it is wakeful, while in 
spirit it is fully aw^ake, and reaches its highest degree of activity 
and productive power. Hence, there is not an atom of matter, 
however small it may be, that does not contain some degree of 
heat imprisoned therein by its cold, or cool surrounding atmos- 
phere, the pressure of which causes a contractive operation to 
take place in the atom, described by Professor Haekel, in the 
case of a moneron, as a pinching-in of all sides of it, which, of 
course, is a concentration of the heat already in the atom, or 
moneron, and an impregnation of it with other heat forced into 
it by such pressure. Heat, when compressed to a certain point, 
re-acts upon the force which compresses it; and this re-action 
produces a vacuum between the opposing forces, which is like 
the world we live in — the mother of all manner of living things. 

Thus does every atom of matter breathe force from itself, 
which brings home that which it needs to replenish its internal 
heat, and its powers of acquisition of spirit, which it draws into 
itself, the same as any magnet does. For there is not an atom, 
or molecule of matter, that is not a magnet for the catching of 



64 THE WAY 

spirits above, below, and all around us. '*Like attracts its like;'' 
and, in my dennition of spirit, I most emphatically disclaim any 
idea of attributing to it any super-natural powers whatever. On 
the contranvt has no more power than any organic being has viz., 
the power to sleep and the power to wake up again. In sleep do 
we not acquire vigor? And, what is vigoi but the power to make 
or create flesh, ner\''e5, bones, and muscles, by exercise? Spirit 
is nothing more nor less than acti%'e matter, while the grossest of 
inen matter is simply sleeping spirit — a net spread, a trap set 
and baited, to catch power in. 

Therefore, to the intelligent reader, heat and cold stand 
revealed as the creators, the father and the mother of the universe 
of things — the Elohim, in Hebrew parlance, who said to each 
other, '"let us make man in our image." No intelligent person 
can think that these words were spoken by one indi^*idual to 
another. But that the words are used to represent the agree- 
ment, or the af fin it}'. of one atom, liquid, gas, or mineral, for 
another, is apparent from the fact that such af&nit}' or agreement 
is the real creator in the things so dra^vn together, and that the 
factors are merely receptacles of creative power, used in and 
around them. We are aware that neither heat nor cold mani- 
fests intelligence. But where does the intelligence of natural 
things ccme from, if it is not a result, small it may be, that does 
not contain some degree of heat? 

That heat is the principle of animation is certain, and that 
it contains life and intelligence is also certain; but, in order to 
effect manifestation, there must exist something to be animated; 
and, for that reason, the most of life and intelligence are fast 
asleep lq that which we call matter. We can only approximately 
define intelligence, as the power of comprehension, which, so 
far as vre know, is limited to its creations, wherein it dwells, 
and out of which it manifests itself in search of more power, or 
some other creative uplifting potent force. By reason of our in- 
telligence do we become what we are. But do you imagine that 



THE WAY 65 



our intelligence thinks, or walks, flies, or swims? No, but it 
makes our bodies move, walk, swim, or think, if we have brains, 
or fly, if v;e have wings; and, undoubtedly, it is the same power 
which causes a leaf to fly in the wind or swim on water. As to 
ourselves, we claim a little intelligence which gives us the power 
to swim in water; but we deny that a log of wood has any at 
all, when it has far more swimming powers than man has. How 
do we know that a log of wood does not think? It certainly is a 
particle of intelligence, since it shows it in its make-up. And, 
therefore, if intelligence, as a whole, thinks in creating things, 
then every atom of matter thinks; or the power to think and to 

do lies latent in every object, or atom, that exists; and latent 
power is what is called intelligence. 

That which is ignorant, weak, and imperfect thinks in order 
to become more intelligent; but a perfect thing needs no thought 
or movement, since it cannot change or grow to be better or worse; 
and, if, in our thought of it, we see it divided into particles of 
matter, we know in our souls that perfect intelligence is still as 
nearly perfect as ever, although deep buried in the mara — the 
illusion of senses. The image-making power in us is the creator ; 
and, by virtue of it, do we make of matter what we desire and 
will to make. This power makes flesh, blood, and bones of the 
stuff we breathe, eat, drink, and think of; for that which we 
imbibe goes to sleep in us, and in that sleep they are transformed 
by the power of heat into water, of which our bodies are made, 
in the cooling of it. 

It is easily perceived how, or in what manner, intelligence 
becomes material, in its formation of water, the solidifying of 
which, by the power of cold, constitutes gross metalic substance. 
As before stated, heat is the principle of all animation, and the 
very essence of it. In a material or chemical view, it is the 
rarest, lightest, and most inflammable, or explosive, of all known 
gases, and is called Hydrogen, the nature of which is feminine, 
since it is the consort of Oxygen, which is cold or masculine; and 



ee THE WAY 



they two are the father and the mother of water, the first-born, 
grossest, heaviest, and hence the lowest of all animate spirits, 
and the first form that spirits assume in descending, or becoming 
material animate beings. The earnest searcher for truth will ask, 
where does water come from? It certainly does not exist ani- 
mately, prior to the union of Hydrogen and Oxygen; and, hence, 
as it comes from them, it must exist in one of them in an inani- 
mate, or latent, condition, as it does in ice, in the absence of 
heat. Now ice forms above water; and hence there are two 
forms of water, one above the firmament, and another below it. 
In the ice above, cold resides; in the water below, is heat — the 
seed of all existing things carried for begetting and generation. 
Water mirrors the sun and the stars that shine above us ; and our 
bodies and brains are mainly made of it. Reflecting powers are 
they, in which we see things strange and new, and out of which 
they come trooping in seried columns — the ghosts of other times, 
long buried in us, as heat is buried in cold. 

The Universe is a fact. We know it exists, and also know 
that w^e are so constituted that we cannot think of it without con- 
ceiving it as a form, having limit, circumference, contour, and 
things moving in it. But what of this thing outside of it? 

We vainly answer that beyond the limit of the universe there 
is nothing. But we find the same thing surrounding every object 
that we know of, or can think of, and also filling all the spaces or 
crevices between things. In fact, we know that objects could 
not exist without this thing (which is not a thing) between them. 
It exists between all atoms of matter and all drops of fluid. 
Blood, tissues, flesh, nerves, and bones — all! everything! is 
cushioned upon this intangible nothing which makes no noise, 
and has no power of resistance, which is boundless, formless, and 
incomprehensible. Things cannot move without it, since it is 
the medium in which things communicate with each other. It 
has no power of repulsion. It is a universal womb which re- 
ceives every dead thing, and gives birth to all that live and move. 



THE WAY 67 

May we not call it the over-soul, of v\-hich our souls are made? 
Or possibly it may be the spirit of heat which rises from the com- 
bustion of things that move, and which cools beyond the range 
of its influence, as things pass beyond our recognition. 

All things of the universe are moving, except the space in 
which they move, which is nothing, the same as a printed page 
has no sense for us, if the spaces, stops, and pauses are removed 
from it. Sense is the most important factor of the universe; but 
these things which move and have being — things which we see, 
handle and know — are all vessels in which it is contained, and 
in which it is measured, and its value determined by us. Things 
are material, and as measures of sense are valuable to us in the 
analysis of them, they are nothing on the way of becoming some- 
thing. Human beings are vessels of this sort. We become full 
of spirit by thinking, and give birth to strange and imknown 
things. Do not they all come from nothing and to it return at 
the end of a brief existence ? If we call nothing spirit, it proves 
nothing. >7ames are nothing. They merely announce the ap- 
pearance of something coming out of nothing. We know nothing 
of spirit further than that it is an emanation from matter like 
heat, vapor, steam, or the aroma of flowers, or the stench of filth. 
But matter is the thing that gives it power. Steam is powerless 
unless it is confined in some material form. A boiler, for instance, 
nor a himian spirit has any power if it be not limited to a body 
or form. Furthermore, it is the matter from which spirit ema- 
nates which gives it its peculiar aroma, its influence, and its 
different degrees of power. Note the difference between the light 
of an oil lamp and that of lectricity. 

Our bodies, like all matter, are subject to two conditions, 
viz., that of heat and cold. Of these we know nothing except 
their influence upon material things. Their combined action, 
we call the temperature of matter. They may be opposing spirits 
for all we know; but names are nothing and we think we know 
that they have no existence except in connection with this thing 



68 THE WAY 

we call matter, of which we are made, and by reason of which 
we manifest, as parts of the universe. The analysis of things 
reveals nothing, since they pass co-ordinately outside and beyond 
what we are in search of. In vain we may search for life in 
these bodies which are all alive. If life is a thing, no one has 
ever found it or measured its pov.-er. It is immense — infinite, 
were it not for death, at which it merely halts on its eternal way 
— infinitely great in its power and intelligence, and infinitely 
small in its weakness and its want of wit. We are very apt to 
overlook the latter and declare that Life is all, and in all, or com- 
plete in itself, or self-creative and self-sustaining, forgetful of 
the fact that organized life is small when compared to that 
which is not so organized. 

Life is known only by the company it keeps; and from its 
association with material things we are bound to judge it from 
a material standpoint, which is to the efi'ect, that as the body is, 
so is the life it contains. The qualit}' of the body, therefore, 
determines the power of its life. Life grows from seed as trees 
do; and, hence, the body is "the tree of life," growing from its 
mother, the seed in which it is planted. Life is in the earth, and 
hence earth is the seed of ever}'thing that grows out of it, and that 
which grows produces seed of its kind or of a higher order than 
its own ; therefore, it is scarcely presumptuous to assume that life 
is the progressive principle, whose powers are without limit, hav- 
ing neither beginning nor end. That it sleeps sometimes, in things 
that scarcely move, is e\'ident, but that it ever dies is absurd. 

It comes into things from a long night's rest in cold dark 
earth, as one awakens from sleep with all one's powers intact, 
and on the alert for exercise. Out of the night of spirit comes 
the earth ; out of the earth comes life ; out of life comes mind ; out ^ 

of mind comes the daylight of spirit in the infinite expanse of 
which man is enthroned with the Christ, the sun of his glory 
shining in himself, and descending from himself to be the light 
and life of men. 



THE WAY 69 



For the creation of things, life is both spiritual and ma- 
terial. The former is that which is incorporeal, or inorganic, 
without form, or power other than that of equilibration. The 
power of inorganic spirit is the opposite of motion — inertia. Sup- 
pose the universe to consist of nothing but spirit, the power of all 
atoms being equal. Of course, such spirit, or life, would be 
totally bereft of any motion whatever. All its power would con- 
sist merely of lying still; and that is exactly the case with inor- 
ganic life; and, were there nothing else than that, there vv^ould be 
no motion and no forms. But the introduction of heat disturbs 
the sleep of spirit ; and from its cold bosom water falls bearing a 
particle of spirit, which we call life, which speedily transforms 
the water into a body to dwell in, the outside of which is, in some 
degree, cold, like the father whence it came. 

The earth, and all it produces, is mainly water, made tan- 
gible and hard by surrounding cold ; and all these are prisons for 
the confinement and limitation of life's powers. Life expands 
as the body grows, and in time shows a little life, with almost 
no intelligence; but, by the operating of continually imbibing 
spirit, intelligence is borne into life wherein it is condensed, or 
concentrated, into a form of life called mind, which is the light 
and the life of organic spirit everywhere and in everything. 



I 



70 THE WAY 



i 



4 



To imagine an epoch when foniis had no existence is to 
realize the existence of universal unbroken darkness, a condition 
preceding the existence of matter and mind — twins in a mother's 
womb. Darkness is the mother of all forms. They are born of 
her. They come out of her by the aid of light, as if they were 
eyes desiring to see. It is the nature of mind to give light, 
because mind is heat, the mother of fire. Matter is darkness 
made tangible by the external influence of cold, which is the 
counterpart, or consort, of darkness, and hence the father of 
matter, which is the foetus in even' womb. Obviously, it is the 
motion of the mother that causes the foetus to grow and imbibe 
heat from its mother, that eventually gives it power to move or 
struggle against its own body. Therefore, every foetus is dual 
— twin forces — in the womb of darkness, wherein all things 
sleep, awaiting the resurrection of life, which is heralded by a 
struggle that lights the fire of mind in the matter, or foetus, 
globular in form — a soul — which eventually becomes a living 
creature. All organic existence depends upon form, and it is 
the light shining in darkness that makes form of it, and in it, 
and it is the heat of matter that makes matter burn and light 
shine, and causes forms to become visible. Therefore, the first 
of all forms was a circle, or globe, of light and power, visible 
above to this day, called the heavens in scripture, and scienti- 
fically known ^s the over-soul, of which the soul of man is the 
counterpart. 

We have no reason to think that the laws of nature ever 
change; hence, things appear and disappear now as they have 
always done, and creation is only another name for growth. 



72 THE WAY 

Therefore, the word creation is misleadins. as conve\*in? the 
idea that things are made from nothing. In this sense, there is 
no creation. Things that now exist have always existed in some 
other condition. The minds of today were dark ignorance a few 
years ago, and so with eyery visible thing. Things are hidden in 
darkness, or covered up with matter, as we cover up the dead; 
and the birth to life is but the resurrection of the dead — a coming 
out of darkness into life. In order to see. light is necessaiy; and 
the heat of matter does not bum in a disused or inorganic con- 
dition, such as darkness, both mental and physical, presents. 
Things are not created, it is their nature to be, and it is as reason- 
able to assume the pre-existence of eventhing as to assume it of 
one thing. The description is produced by laws, which are 
found only in that which is produced. The pre-existence of all 
effects is a foregone conclusion. 

Cause and enect are the same — the male and the female 
principles of existence. Man exists in seed before in the shape 
of a human being. .\nd how do we know that he did not exist 
as the ocean or that primordial night out of which we know he 
came, as the over-soul came, the ven* first object that was re- 
vealed, resurreaed, or bom from the one whole, or holy being, 
the mother of all, which we fail to know amthing about, owing 
to our exceedingly small souls and weak conception of things? 
To see. requires an eye, and light to see vriih] and the over-soul 
is that all-seeing eye, out of which shines the light of intelligence, 
as shines any light from the sun. 

.And as light bore the sun to its place at the center of our 
solar system, so does the light of our own intelligence bear us to 
the center of our own souls, him, who said to Moses: 'T am the 
things that I am made of. I am the ego. I am the body, mind, 
light, and a soul through which intelligence issues. I am the 
pronoun I, the eye that sees, feels, and knov.s." Made of the 
refuse-stuff, the weakest, meanest stuff, which was unfit for anv 
other puqx)se, if we may judge from his extreme weakness and 



THE WAY 73 



ignorance, since not a being on earth is so deficient as he! The 
query naturally suggests itself: May it not be that man came 
by his own free-will to see what he could make of himself ? Not, 
however, as separate from all the rest, but as the heat of every 
atom of matter used in the structure of earth, sun, and stars I 
Constructing himself out of his own emanations. It certainly 
looks that way, since everything that breathes impregnates itself 
with the power to grow and become greater. Every individual 
carries his, or her, own father and mother within himself, the 
father being the soul, and the mother what the soul contains, 
which, as flint and steel strike fire out of each other, by contact or 
friction, produce the life of the individual. 

As previously stated, the laws of being are in each individ- 
ual thing; and, therefore, outside there is an infinite vista of 
inorganic life to be drawn upon and incorporated into him who 
desires, wills, and works to get and to use it. I dwell upon this 
subject because it is all-important to realize that one holds his 
own destiny in his own grasp. It is true that the over-soul is 
infinite in extent and in power; but it bends over us to protect 
us in the use of what little liberty and power we have. It is 
a misnomer to call the over-soul he or she, since it is simply a 
great reservoir of power held in reserve for our use, which be- 
comes cold and dark to us — the reverse of heat, the feminine or 
creative principle. Power is unchangeable, and is the same in 
small and weak things as in great and strong things, the same 
in father as in mother, differing only as to the quantity held 
in reserve by difference of form. It is the reserve force which 
is of greatest value in regard to forms ; and it is the solid compact 
forms which contain the most power and life, without reference 
to the use of it, since a reserve force is not in use, but is subject 
to call or command. Now, the outside forms of fruits, vegetables, 
etc., appear before the more valuable (except in use), or life- 
giving, parts appear; and this fact shows that the inner or 
mother of things is the reserve fotte here alluded to, and is of 



74 THE WAY 

the same nature as that which the over-soul contains. There- 
fore, even^ fonn is a soul, in which, and beyond or back of our 
vie^^point, resides "She who is nameless," but who was, by our 
ancient Eg}^tian brothers of the Rosy-Cross, called "Isis, the 
mother of all the gods," whose veil none have heretofore been 
able to lift — but which I now declare to be the form of man, 
behind and in which she hides her face. 

To look behind, below, beyond, or within the human forms 
is to behold the secret and sacred fire which bums in the soul 
and produces all life. In the form is the "kingdom of God," or 
power, which, being ^^•ithout form, dark and imdsible even to 
itself, makes a light of itself, which reveals heaven as the first 
form, which, with its contents, is one, and would eternally remain 
one, were it not for the fact that light reveals itself, as well as 
the form it is in; and, since light is an irrepressible power, it has 
continued to reveal unnumbered dark objects, lamps not yet 
lighted, because undiscovered, and hence of no use. Light is the 
life, or spirit, of heat, which is the spirit of matter, which is the 
substance of darkness. In other words, darkness is the pall that 
covers the face of cold death — the power, which, being the prin- 
ciple of durability, unchangeableness, firmness, and protection, is 
t^-pified by the soul, or outside of things, as well as the soul in- 
side of things, which guards and protects that inward fire which 
bums therein as long as it is protected from the cold outside of 
it, since fire may be smothered by the ver>' things which make it 
burn. Too much fuel is equal to too little ; and hence an intelli- 
gent regulator of these two opposing forces, heat and cold, is 
necessar}' for the perpetuation of any form in which heat is con- 
fined. 

And right here is where man appears, as the power that can 
protect himself by the control of the ver}^ things which have given 
him form and appearance. It is the light of intelligence that 
enables us to see; and, so long as we remain in the darkness of 
ignorance, we get no life until we make it in ourselves, by our 



THE WAY 75 



own efforts. If we cannot make the effort, we get no light, no 
life, nor power. The light of intelligence issues from the soul, 
which is the Ego — the *'I am" of each individual, a single eye, 
looking through two eyes, by reason of which everything appears 
dual, male and female, good and evil, father and mother. Form 
is a soul, a direct descendant of the over-soul, and is the visible 
part of each individual, which, by a further descent, becomes the 
inmost soul, the Ego, wherein the fire of conscious life is kindled. 
The over-soul is the all-seeing eye, the reverse of our eyes, since 
it is concave, an object plain to be seen above, enclosing the en- 
tire universe, and embracing every object and all phenomena in 
its field of vision; while our eyes are convex, and limited in 
vision, requiring constant readjustment of focus. The light of 
intelligence issuing from every part of the concave over-soul 
comes to a focus at the center of the area enclosed therein, where 
all the rays meet, and intelligence is embodied in the laws that 
govern the universe. Man descends from cold darkness in water 
through the influence of heat, which is virtually a resurrection 
from the tomb. 

Every object contains the law of its being, which are the 
father, the mother, and whatever their offspring may be. The air 
we breathe impregnates the body w^ith power to act; therefore, 
all our acts are our children, so also the things we see, and the 
sensations we feel impregnate us with thoughts of pleasure and 
pain, which are our offspring, which, borne into active existence, 
make us strong, or poison the formation of the life we must live. 
Therefore, it is obvious that all objects are most intimately re- 
lated, and naturally affect each other, making universal law by 
the union of individual laws. Man is the spirit, substance, or 
matter of which forms are made; and he is master of himself 
and what he contains and other things also, by reason of the free- 
dom and power of his will. Stripped of his possessions or his 
attributes, he is a naked, lifeless soul; but the moment a breath 
of life enters him, he clutches it as his own, and hence the 



76 THE \\^\Y 

power of the body that acquires and uses things is a dual power, 
viz., heat and cold. 

Unlike material acquisitions, the real things that man 
acquires become himself. Therefore, we are led to conlude that 
the power called will, exists prior to the organization of the body, 
and is the power that draws the atoms together, and then charges 
them with life. Will, therefore, is the principal factor of being, 
motion, or life. Will is automatic power, moving matter as the 
heart moves, with an open-and-shut-movement, which movement 
may, and often is, interrupted by the excess of either heat or cold, 
its parents. Of course, the will is a spiritual faculty of man; 
and, as everything spiritual has its material counterpart, so has 
the will its counterpart in the feeling of weakness inherent in all 
material things. Will produces motion; and from motion comes 
conscious feeling, the first and greatest of the senses, out of 
which mind grows, as trees grow out of the ground. From 
weakness arises reverence in which the movements of will are 
retarded and diverted from their natural to an unnatural action, 
destructive of its freedom and its power. 

Looking upward, one perceives a section of the all-seeing 
eye, described above, the over-soul of this world; and each one 
of us has an over-soul peculiar to himself, known as his own 
mind, in which he exists, and which, being convex, outwardly 
gives him vision of external things, which entering in impreg- 
nate the body, and become parts of it. Therefore, our bodies are 
reflections of things of universal sense, drawn into us by our 
senses, and thoughts of our thinking. And as our minds are con- 
cave, they have the power of introspection or of examining and 
knowing every atom of the body — its nature and powers, how 
made and its source. We became physically large and powerful 
by external observation, because ever}1;hing one sees objectively is 
food for physical nature, which is essentially cold and ignorant. 

Who ever heard of the wisdom of ignorance ? And yet exist- 
ence has its foundation laid in ignorance, and all the wisdom 



THE WAY 77 

known is forced into existence by its power. It cannot be said 
that cold or darkness is intelligent or that it, in conjunction with 
ignorance, can produce either directly or indirectly an object that 
manifests life and a degree of wisdom in its structure. The wisest 
lawgiver known was produced by parents totally ignorant of 
what they were producing. It is folly to talk about a superior 
being, in view of what we actually know. Neither the passions 
nor the intelligence that actuate the male and the female in the 
generative act can be said to be that of wisdom. The heat of 
blind passion is the only force involved in procreation; and this 
force is in the parties themselves, and not in some wise, intelli- 
gent power above and beyond natural law. The air we breathe, 
the food we consume for the heat they contain, to give us life, 
are as ignorant as can be imagined ; and the heat they produce in 
our blood and flesh shows no sign of wisdom until it manifests 
pov;er in forcing cold to give water wherein to hide itself and 
begin the work. 



78 THE WAY 



"God is Spirit and they who worship Him must v/orship 
in spirit and truth." — Jesus. 

We know nothing of Spirit whatever, except in connection 
with matter. True, we are mental as well as material, but mind 
is dependent on the body. Our mind is an outgrowth of our 
physical nature and spirit; if there is any mind that belongs to 
organic matter it must be produced by the united action of those 
two principles. In fact, spirit is the offspring of mind and mat- 
ter. The first principle of existence is order, which we recognize 
as inertia, a lack of energy, or absolute rest — the entity of all 
being, the unit, seed, or spirit, of every existing thing — and every 
object is an image thereof. A unit cannot be conscious of any- 
thing but itself. That which is all, cannot be conscious of any- 
thing but itself, in which it exists as I exist in my body or as 
heat exists in cold. An infant is first conscious of its ovv^n body, 
which is conscious also, by reason of its presence, but in a less 
degree. It cannot laiow its own mother until after its birth, and 
then only in part; for in this manner only can consciousness be- 
come divided into parts and become many instead of one. Being 
material, we know spirit only from a material standpoint, until 
we become in a degree mental ; and then all we know of spirit is 
merely what we think we know. We know of the great pov/er of 
the universe to sustain and to destroy living things, in fact, to 
make things move, grow, live, suffer, enjoy, struggle, and die, 
regardless of the wishes or will of the things that suffer. And, 
by general consent, seeing individuals do things, we imagine that 
an individual also does the work of creation and we name it God, 
Brahma, Allah, Jove, Jehovah, Buddha, or what not, and make 



80 THE WAY 



images of wood, stone, or other substance in commemoration of a 
wholly imaginary concept of mind, barely budded and just com- 
menced to grow out of material form. What do we know of spirit 
other than that it is the aroma of flowers, of fruits, grain, or of 
things we consum.e, which consists of several substances instead 
of one, which keeps us alive and which cannot, by any known 
process, be made an individual thing without combining it with 
something else, to limit or to confine it. 

No individual thing exists alone. Even man, the greatest 
of all known intelligent beings, exists only in his ideal of him- 
self, whether he is conscious of it or not. Every one is peculiar, 
nor would one exchange vv^ith another; and those peculiarities 
are spirits, in which we exist alternately as spirit and matter, or 
the visible body and the invisible. We exist in our own estimate 
of ourselves; and this estimate is an emanation, or spirit grow- 
ing out of the ego as a tree or plant grows from the planted 
seed. The ego is that primal principle referred to, and know^n 
by us, as order, the law of universal being. The ego is the 
energy or the vim of spirit rising as the life of seed rises in fruit 
or plant. Spirit concentrated without protection, like heat, evap- 
orates and disappears; and, hence, for its own protection, it is 
confined in a shell where it remains inwardly as the seed of spirit 
which is of itself formless. By this means is spirit made into 
atoms; and that which is formless and void, as the earth was 
prior to its organization, is made an individual thing In view 
of the wonderful and mysterious workings of things, mankind 
have been busy since time was in the making of their own 
thoughts into Gods, which they worship, about which they dis- 
agree; and, as if to settle the matter, Jesus declared God to be 
spirit or an emanation of matter when considered materially, or 
an emanation of mind when viewed mentally, such as anger, 
pride, disgust, jealousy, envy, hate, etc., etc., all of which are 
disorderly spirits which, therefore, cannot take form only as they 
enter into beings that are already formed. The spirits called 



THE WAY 81 



Hope, Charity, Love, Mirth, and Good-Will are spirits gener- 
ated in the mind of man by a process of thinking and emanating 
therefrom in the work of creation. 

In view of these considerations, being without a logical and 
comprehensible definition of spirit, we have no idea of the nature 
of God in reality. The word od-force might be logically con- 
strued as the creator of the universe of forms, since statical elec- 
tricity — a force without motion, where order is supreme — is the 
seed of every form or system of forms that ever had being; and 
the Scripture would be far more intelligible, common-sensible, 
and natural, if expressed somewhat as follows : Presuming that 
the universe never existed, in the beginning there existed only 
that all-pervasive spirit, the original feminine force, the mother 
of magnetism, whose primal action is wholly inward upon her- 
self, until in the fulness of time she becomes pregnant and gives 
birth to spirit by an explosion, whereby the universe is born in 
it and not out of it; hence, the universe of material things is 
spiritual, the soul of spirit. In giving birth to the universe, 
spirit parted in twain, whereby light and life were set free, th.e 
former becoming the firmament of heaven above, the latter the 
darkness and mystery of material being here below in this 
earth's sphere, of which the eartli and other objects are made. 
Spirit finds voice at every birth, the voice of light and not of 
darkness, since light and intelligence are born from the anguish 
of spirit. There is nothing supernatural about spirit, nor its 
way of doing things; and there is nothing incomprehensible if 
we only had the sense to understand the voice of God, which 
speaks in ever}' longing soul. Light is masculine, darkness femi- 
nine; and light descending upon darkness impregnates every 
material with power to grow, live, and become, because life, with 
all that pertains to it, is already therein, awaiting resurrection. 

Creation is as much now as it ever was. Laws never change. 
Order is the first law and it is always first, an unchangeable 
auto-suggestion, or comniand; a command to us to let our light 



82 THE WAY 



shine and for us to be. Order is the power that organizes many 
spirits into one; it is therefore not a spirit itself, but a law of 
spirit residing in it, as seed resides in fruit or grain. Without 
order not a thing can exist, it is therefore the seed of every 
material and mental thing, since a spiritual object is out of the 
question, except such as we are familiar with. Can anger, hate, 
avarice, etc., be objectified except in actions that we do? And 
so with all spirits, we imbibe them as we do food and water and 
air and ideas. They are formless, subtile, insinuating, elemen- 
tary powers that embody themselves in us, when invited in. 
Spirit fills the universe; but man fills spirit, which he uses as 
we do our bodies. There is no spirit known that man cannot use 
if he knows how, and has the will to do so. Spirit belongs to 
m^an, it is his servant. It obeys his every wish if he loves it with 
his whole soul, which draws it and fills itself full to its utmost 
capacity, as one fills his muscles w4th energy in preparing for 
an effort, and, when full, by an effort of the will (which is mere- 
ly a contraction of the soul), the pent-up spirit, like steam in a 
boiler, is forced out to do as commanded. 

Man is not mind, nor is he a spirit, since he possesses both, 
the same as he does his body or his limbs, his coat, or any other 
property. My soul is my own ; so is my spirit, my body, and my 
mind. I and my spirit are inseparable, we both came on this 
earth together. I, by my love of spirit, clothed myself with it, 
as the germ of life clothes itself in a shell in ripened fruit. My 
spirit then becomes my protector, as it has become my body, as 
a shell is around the seed of fruit. As my protector, it is my 
father, the over-soul that surrounds me ; and I am in him a mere 
germ, or seed, of what I will to be and to become. Thus, en- 
closed in my own spirit father I am borne by him into spirit 
mother that my spirit may draw to, since spirit is subject to the 
law of love, or attraction; and it isT who make the laws of my 
own being in proportion to my power over my spirit. Spirit is 
outside and eternally in motion, while I, the ego, am inside and 



THE WAY 83 

eternally still, only as I am carried around in spirit. In the 
womb I made a body of my spirit according to what I love to 
have my spirit become. Love is not spirit, but is a sensation I 
feel when spirit enters me, I attract and I repel spirit, and 
there is not a spirit in existence — and the universe is full of 
them — that man cannot become master of and use as he pleases ; 
and he v/lio, from any cause, fails to control the spirits that make 
his body and mind is carried by them as a leaf is carried in the 
wind. 

]Man becomes a monster spirit under the influence of his pas- 
sions, all of which are spirits though subject to control. We are 
made up of animal spirits, most of which are wild and untam.ed 
by reason of countless incarnations; for animal spirit may be 
brought into any shape or degree of depravity. But the spirit 
that issues directly from the ego is purity itself, althougli it may 
become impure by use. That spirit is under tlie influence of 
man is dem.onstrated by the universal practice of praying, be- 
seeching God to do for us. W'e praise God, expecting him to 
return the favor by blessing us in return. This is indeed v^ell 
enough since it affects our spirits, for we pray to ourselves and 
those who listen; and thus a multitude of spirits are influenced 
and united as one in purpose and in action. Nov/ such union 
of spirits is a seed from which grow forms of religion, societies, 
government, and animal and human forms; for, when gathered 
together, many spirits become one by reason of the order and 
system which cements them together, preparatory to explosion, 
projection, or manifestation of pov\'er for God. It is obvious, 
therefore, that all such combinations of spirit are images of that 
primal law of being which prompts one to declare " I am."' 
"Truly where tvv^o or more are joined together, there am I in the 
midst." And, in the union of the male and the female, I, the 
ego, am the seed that produces an animal or a human being. 
The germ of life is one; and it contains all that pertains to any 
and every manifestation of life whatever, and is the father of 



84 THE WAY 

what grows from it, and is not the one who plants the seed. A 
grain of corn is the father of corn. Not the one who plants the 
corn is the father. Likev\'ise, the germ planted in the womb is 
the father of the child, no matter by whom or how it is planted, 
and it is a germ that leads in the production of ever}-thing. It 
is the only power around which spirit gathers; hence, Jesus was 
perfectly consistent in the instructions he gave for the prayer he 
taught his disciples to pray. He taught that the father is within. 
Heaven certainly is where the father is; and, when we pray to 
''Our Father, who art in heaven," we address the intelligent 
germ of life, our creator, a power that belongs to us and dwells 
in us, where pleasure only can be — that germ of life which 
leads in even,- movement, tempting or otherwise, and which is 
the only power that can deliver us from the evils we are already 
in by reason of birth. 

The germ of life burns in our blood, leaps with joy in the 
thought of creation, and in the womb makes a body of water 
and darkness to dwell in. The source of life is an orb of diffused 
inorganic formless light that pervades universal darkness, drawn 
toe;ether and fashioned as the sun is : and the s^erm of life, after 
making a body that is dark inside as well as out, must needs let 
the light of itself shine out to make the body like itself; and the 
light shining out of this living germ impregnates the darkened, 
ignorant body, and out of it is born an organic form of light, 
known as the mind of man, or in other words, the sun, or the 
light, of man, which, by many transformations through all forms 
of darkness below the form of man, takes human form at last and 
becomes personal as the son of man — the light, life, and immor- 
tality of man, all of which exist in the germ of life called sperma- 
tazoon. A light in darkness attracts the very lowest form of spirit 
life, Vsherein they are consumed. St. Paul says, "Our God is a 
consuming fire.'' And as fire burns in every germ it makes a 
light in the womb which attracts. 

The ver}' lowest and weakest forms known, the first of all 



THE WAY 85 

forms kno^n, are made of water, and are the creatures that ^y 
out of water — ^such as the light of the germ in the womb, wherein 
the body of an infant is being formed and in the light is con- 
sumed and transformed into the body. Now all material forms 
are mainly made of vs-ater; and even- infant grows in water, 
wherein swarms of spiritual li\'ing things unite for its composi- 
tion. The world is nothing more than a womb in which v.e are 
forming ourselves, and we have to use the material we attraa to 
ourselves to construct the body v.e live in. \A"e are made oi 
spirits, which are mainly blind and weak; but what povs'er of 
sight they have enters and becomes the mind of man. The mind 
in its infanc}- is weak, ignorant, obstinate and stubborn; and, 
as the father depends upon his son, the mind, to look to the wel- 
fare of the body, the house they Kve in, and as the body is auto- 
matic, constantlv deca^-ine and renev.insr itself when imcontroUed 
— and as the spirit is when not controlled or undisturbed by its 
ov\Ti light. But, as light is always mo\'ing and has not "where 
to lay its head," it is always ready to suggest improvements in 
its habitations., or introduces habits that soon make a \\Teck of 
its body, whereby it is no longer a fit habitation for annhing but 
for germs of destruction. The great creative principle imder- 
l}ing all creation and progress is the principle that imderlies all 
variation of mental action which has peopled the world vdih 
countless objects, no r^'o of which are alike in ever}' respect. The 
power that originates, and hence creates things, it seems to me as 
if it v\-ere the enon of one groping in darkness to make things 
without a pattern and without instruction. Considering the 
uncouth, repulsive, useless, and apparently deformed objects 
which meet us on our way — objects which seem to exist ^vithout 
any purpose or motive further than to annoy, disgust, and tor- 
ment something else — it seems as if power in its inianc}' must 
crawl before it can walk or swim in water or sjrow winss that 
enable it to ny in the air as mosquitoes, etc., showing how water 
becomes aUve, takes wings, makes eyes to see, and finally walks 



and thinks as men do. who in reality are made mainly of water 
with a modicum of the seed of life in it. 

There is not an atom of existing matter that does not con- 
tain a germ of life, since matter is a form or combination of spir- 
its: hence, matter is God. as Jesus declared to Philip, saying, "If 
you see me at any time, you have seen the Father." Therefore, 
we see God when we see each other or any manifestations what- 
ever. ^^'e know nothing whatever, except through the senses. We 
cannot think or reason vdthout sense; and the instinct of animals 
and intuition of man surely depend upon sense; therefore, all vre 
know of Spirit or God comes through the use of our senses. Man, 
being the unit, numeral "1," the pronoun 'T,** the Ego, or the 
unchanging consciousness of being, contains all or is all-con- 
scious, potentially — even without being embodied in any sense 
of the word. This virtually means that unless consciousness is 
embodied there can be no existence: and, as nothing exists out- 
side of consciousness, it (consciousness) is therefore the body of 
it (existence) ; and these tvro are mutually dependent upon each 
other for existence, and are known in scripture parlance as male 
and female, in the image of which all things are made. Some- 
thing with nothing is eternally wedded: and from their union 
spirit, out of which ever}"thing is fashioned, is continually being 
bom. Spirit cannot be produced by any other process than that 
cf wedlock, the joining together of two for the production of a 
third thing dwelling between the two. But the question arises. 
Hcv.- can consciousness (it being the first and the only individual 
existence) multiply itself since Egos are infinite in number, all 
proceeding from this one? To meet this quer}- men have sup- 
posed deity to be dual, or hermapdrodite in person, one side male 
and the other side female; but this does not explain the method 
for creation as we know it to exist under the unchangeable laws 
of nature. Nature produces all things within herself \\-ithout 
help from any external power so far as can be kno\Mi; and the 
inference is logical that a perfectly natural man has the same 



THE WAY 87 



power of producing and reproducing his love sensations and his 
ov.Ti life in himself in like manner. 

It is an incontrovertible fact that even as vre now are, we do, 
by our thoughts, produce sensations of pleasure, pain, disgust, 
and jealousy, and also destroy the same, in ourselves, by our own 
volition. The Ego, being absolute power, is non-com^bustible. A 
fire cannot burn by reason of the nothingness of its cold sur- 
roundings; but the Ego, having everything in itself except cold, 
is that v/hich divides the heat of itself from the limitless cold 
body it is in. Therefore, that action of heat upon cold is neces- 
sary by the way of the Ego, from which she is inspired in the pro- 
duction of light. The Ego is neither masculine nor feminine; 
but it divides cold, which is masculine, from heat, which is femi- 
nine, whereby vibration or motion is produced for the creation of 
the light "that light eth everyone that cometh into the world"-^ 
the maker of everything that is made, matter and spirits included. 
Now, this is exactl}' what happens to ever}^ individual who has 
arrived at the age of discretion. We beget ourselves in our own 
bodies by our thinking, planning, and doing; but we are hardly 
ever conscious of what we are doing in this respect. Automatic- 
ally our cold, calculating outside nature is constantly active in the 
work of begetting in our sympathetic soul what we shall be in 
some future time; but we have power by virtue of the Ego in the 
soul to interfere in this automatic work and to beget what we 
wish ourselves to be in some future time. Spirit does not sense 
or laiow, it moves only in the obedience of the will of the Ego 
that never moves nor grows old; hence, v/hatever is done is done 
in the spirit of doing. God is spirit, the spirit that surrounds the 
Ego and is the soul in which it dwells. The soul is love, and 
its function is the restraint of spirit which flows from the heat of 
passionate love. The soul, therefore, is cold. As previously 
stated, the Ego comes into this world a mere seed accompanied 
by its own spirit, or the various spirits that it has lived in prev- 
ious lives, ranging from the lowest that water produces up to the 



83 THE WAY 



highest denizens of the air that fly the highest and see the 
farthest, out of which the power of man to produce and to know 
is derived. The lowest and weakest things that are made of and 
in water have spirits in them, by which they see, fly, and know 
the little games they play of annoying and increasing the nerv- 
ous action of things greater than they. They seem to realize 
that they are the very beginning of mental power, which it is 
their mission to beget in the blood of animal and man. Water 
is mother spirit, the first spirit that took form on earth, and of 
which all forms are largely composed. Stagnant or dead water is 
full of life ; and the form of man is mainly stagnant water, which 
breeds merely weakness and helpless ignorance, which needs fer- 
tilizing in order to be productive. Our bodies are surely femi- 
nine ; and in them one may beget one's own immortality ; for the 
father dwells in the souls of those who think and believe in him 
who declares 'T am what I will to be." 



THE SAVIOR 

Of all things, man at birth is the weakest and the most help- 
less; but at maturity he is the most self-sustaining and inde- 
pendent. As an infant he needs help in all his ways. As a 
man he looks mainly to himself, helps himself, seldom asking 
others for help. His motto is, "Help Yourself." The self-made 
man is one to be proud of. Such are originals. They do not 
follow after others, they make customs and laws that govern. 
Such are great warriors; and from them have arisen Kings, rul- 
ers, saviors and worship. Saviors and Gods. It is ignorance and 
weakness that needs help. "Those that are wtII need not a 
physician." "Those that are not lost need no savior." From 
this we arrive at the truth that knowledge is the true and only 
savior. This certainly was the teaching of Jesus. "If ye abide 
in my word (instructions), ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free." According to the Christ, therefore, 
freedom is to be desired above all things. Knowledge and truth 
are mere steps in the ladder of human achievement. Nature is 
the foundation upon which this ladder stands ; and we may safe- 
ly conclude that nature has created no want without a supply 
close at hand. In fact, want is of the soul, and is termed femi- 
nine, while that which supplies deficiencies is mind, the mascu- 
line consort of Soul. In order to arrive at the true meaning of 
w'ords it is necessary to understand the difference between a 
noun, the name we give the first principle of beings and an 
adjective, or qualifying word, used to express some quality of the 
noun. 

Xow, mind is the name we give to a center or form of intelli- 
gence, which is another name given to the formless spirit of man 



90 THE WAY 

which exists inorganically, as life exists without any form what- 
ever. Therefore, form depends upon life, while life is self-sufii- 
cient and self-supporting. There can be only one infinite prin- 
ciple — and that is, nothing, which lies outside of and around all 
power, intelligence, light, life, darkness, ignorance, or any con- 
ceivable principle or lack of it whatever. 

We can chase matter back into nothing, but farther than 
this we cannot go. Can it be possible that organic matter, the 
objects v/e see, handle and measure, and even we ourselves are 
standing upon the brink of nothing, the great deep spoken of in 
Genesis, in which the earth was Vv^ithout form and void of signifi- 
cance, and upon whose face "The Darkness was," in which God 
dwelt ere time had being, and before things were made of things 
that already "was!" St. John thus declared: "In the beginning 
v/as the word, and the word was with God, and the word w^as 
God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Ail 
things were made by him; and without him was not anything 
made that was made. And the word was made flesh and dwelt 
among us." A word materially considered is merely a sound, 
but spiritually considered it is the forerunner of infinite intelli- 
gence, the conductor of spirit into material conditions. It is 
therefore the creator of the universe, and all that is in it. In 
Genesis it is declared, "God created the heavens and the earth;" 
but St. John, who was a Jew and therefore familiar with the 
Hebrew ideas of God and creation, shows that God simply 
formed or organized spirits that already existed, first, into the 
heavens, and afterwards, into the globe on which we live, by the 
word which spoke light and life into existence. 

Now we must consider that the laws of nature are immutable 
or unchangeable; and that which "was" in the beginning re- 
mains the same now as then, the Same God, the same deep, and 
the same darkness upon its "face" which hides the great God 
from us, and the w^aters in the deep. Water is the first form of 
matter, and of spirit; the dividing line between nothing and 



THE WAY 91 

scmething; the first creation of Light; that which follows the 
electric flash of the storm cloud; the voice which spoke magnetic 
spirit into being, and of which material things are mainly com- 
posed; that which represents the numeral nine; the end of 
silence and the beginning of speech; the union of nothing with 
something numerically called 10; the beginning of another 
series of the same numbers; the invisible made \'isible; the im- 
probable made probable; and the silent Ego finds voice, and 
speaks the word that makes everj,-thing that is made of the things 
that are not made, the darkness, the spirit, and the waters that 
were in the deep before light was bom of its mother; "the dark- 
ness that was on the face of the deep'' wherein "the spirit of God 
moved'' in the making of worlds, suns, stars, li\ing things, and 
still moves on the face of the waters in the deep, of all wombs 
where li\dng things grow and take form. What do we know of 
God then, who never appears, but whose spirit moves upon us to 
make cur water}- forms alive by his word ? 

Jesus said, "God is spirit,'* but what do we know of spirit? 
So far as we know, it is an emanation from some form of matter, 
both living and dead. A spirit is the influence of one thing upon 
another, and hence is not a thing unless it be in some form, 
v»-hen it gives character, or qualit}-, to the form it occupies. Eor 
instance, anger is a spirit; but it is nothing except in the person 
who gives it being, who is said to be an angr\- or bad man. And 
the same is true in regard to God, good, love, hate, or any spirit 
v,hatever. Spirit is not an entity because it has no form of itself. 
For vvhich reason the Jews were not to make any likeness of their 
God, v.-ho said of himself, ''The Lord, thy God is a jealous 
God" — that is, he was a being filled with the spirit called jeal- 
ousy. Where are the Gods? This v.-ord, God, is badly abused. 
We know nothing of God except what we find in ourselves. A 
spirit is a human attribute about the same as love, good, anger, 
or any emotion or expression of man is known to be. These 
words are names we give to what we feel, and are conscious of 



92 THE WAY 

knowing. Is there any spirit greater than consciousness ? Spirit 
does not move unless it be forced to do so by man who dwells in 
it, or in whom it may find lodging. Spirit "is the most subtle 
of all the beasts of the field, that the Lord God has made.'' It 
is inen power, the body of conscious Being known as the Ego in 
maTi and all intelligent beings. There are three grades of con- 
sciousness: the first is the mental power of knowing; the second 
is a substratum of consciousness underhing and composing the 
body out of which the first takes :5 rise; while above and sur- 
rounding all is the super- conscious over-soul with which sub- 
conscious matter, of which the form of man is composed, is imited 
in mutual love, and from whose embrace man, the maker of all 
subliminary iieings is evolved. ^lan. therefore, by virtue of his 
parentage is the conscious Ego of a sub-conscious form, which is 
his mother, or womb in which he is gestating for birth: and in 
doing so he makes other things by the magnetic spirit emanate 
from himself. For the body is a magnet in which the Ego dwells, 
an invisible sun whose radiating spirit is truth ; for be it under- 
stood that the Ego is an absolutely true form of conscious spirit 
without beginning and without end, a perfect sphere, emitting 
the truth or intelligence which he, or they, speak into existence — 
since they are all alike. 

Things that are true ronam the same. Tne sun and the 
planetory system tell a true stoTv of existence; but they are not 
ab5olu:e"-; :rue, or motion would cease to be. 

From the fact that there is no perfect thing, we deduce the 
further fact that the world fell from perfect power to abjea weak- 
ness in all the things that are made; for in the making of things 
the word becomes the inmost of that which is made. Ever}* true 
object is spherical, that is, without limbs, angles, or comers. And 
the same is true in regard to the objective motion of light : to be 
true it must describe a perfect circle, which the electric discharge 
from a storm-cloud shows is never done because of the weakness 
of its source and the opposition of the atmosphere spirit of dark- 



THE WAY 93 



ness wherein it moves. The electric flash, although heralded by 
a perfect sound, does not describe a perfect circle, nor is it a true 
representation of the magnetic life "which makes all the things 
that are made" — not that the word that speaks light into being 
is untrue or false, but that it is weak, and hence unable to fill 
the entire universe. We do not know but that possibly the word 
may have exhausted itself in creating "the heavens and the 
earth," and therefore was unable to create anything perfect and 
true thereafter. However that may be, there are no perfect things 
now known. Every object is an imperfect entity emitting weak- 
ness from itself, while the spirit that issues from a perfectly true 
entity is called the truth of the Christ, a spirit that makes mor- 
tals more true and deathless. 

Truth, like the atmosphere, has life in it. And whoever 
imbibes it is made alive. Every atom of the body is made per- 
fect in form, place, and functions, if the idea that forms it is 
true. Now every spoken word — nay, every thought, the father of 
words, whether uttered or not — has an influence upon the spirit 
that makes the form of man, in its processes of formation. An 
atom of matter is the beginning of the appearance of man on 
earth ; but he is a spirit form before he is an atom of matter. 

The idea that intelligence is limited to a form called mind, 
man, bird, fish, spirit, God, or any conceivable thing, is the 
height of absurdity. Intelligence is spirit of which we know 
little beyond the fact that it is moved to organize itself into germs 
of material things by the image-making power of man before an 
atom of matter is made. The first law of being is order, and 
perfect man is that law. He is a law to himself, an intelligent 
law whose word is as good as himself. The creative power of 
love is motion, a law that is born of love, and hence a blind force, 
as blind as she. 

In the beginning, the law of motion compels the spirit word 
to describe a perfect circle of magnetic light back to its source. 
This is the first and the only perfect manifestation of the word 



94 THE \\'AY 

that in the beginning \Yas with God and that was God, and was 
and still is ''the maker of all the things that are made." 

The form of man is first made of spirit or compounded of 
one part Hydrogen Gas to eight parts of Oxygen Gas — the 
father and the mother of v;ater, the first materialization of spirit 
of which subconscious flesh is mainly made. If any doubt exists 
in regard to the subconsciousness of the body, watch the conscious 
worms crawl out of it after the death of it. 

These two gases and spirits just upon the verge of becom- 
ing material, where hydrogen is almost ready to speak in thunder 
tones from the cold oxygen-charged storm-cloud as it becomes 
water, which falling in rain drops become living things in pond, 
gutter, or living blood 1 

Between these two spirits dwells the Ego, the life of things; 
and it is he (the Ego) who utters "the word which makes all the 
things that are made, and which became flesh and dv;elt among 
us," according to St. John, in speaking of the man Jesus. This 
is an important statement, since it declares that the creator may, 
under some circumstances, become the thing he makes; and if so 
in one instance it shows the operation of universal, immutable, 
unchangeable law. For if a word ever became a human being, 
it has never ceased to do so, however inarticulate or false it may 
become in the speaking of it. Speech is a matter of culture, and 
words make the progress of the race. The sound of the voice 
tells of the soul and of him vdio dwells therein. The spirit of a 
man goes out in his words, and they may defile him. The Ego 
is absolutely true and without a shadow of friction in his motion 
since he never moves or changes in form ; and the word he speaks 
is his spirit and is as true as himself. It moves without noise or 
friction, and hence produces no pain or disease; on the con- 
trar}', it is a breath of life and healing. Wherever it goes as 
light, the spirit of the sun does. Spirit is an emanation from an 
entity, like the sun or some center of energy, such as living 
being, or a burning pile. A word may be such a center if it be 



THE WAY 95 



spoken from a true, earnest, honest soul; but if it be not so cen- 
tered it is spirit without an object or soul in it, which may be 
made to engage in business where truth is at a discount. What 
can be said of the commercial word of the world as it now is? 
It is an article of commerce, is bought and sold like any article 
of value ; in fact, the false word is of far greater worth generally 
speaking than the simple naked word of truth. "And the word 
became flesh." Is it not as true in regard to false and trifling 
words as to the word that said "Let their be light," or, "I am 
the light that lighteth every one that cometh into this world," as 
Jesus said, "I, the Ego, am such light as eye hath not seen, nor 
thought of man portrayed." 

It is obvious, therefore, that ones vv^ords are very essential 
to the healthy action of his body. May it not be that the mag- 
netic spirit of living beings issues with greater force in sound 
than in any other force? The first thing a babe does is to cry 
out with a loud voice to release the spirit which has been at work 
in it for the previous nine months, giving it form and power. The 
human body is a magnet; and every expression of it gives free- 
dom to magnetic spirit which speaks, and works, making things. 
Was it not magnetic or electric light that God spake into being 
long before the sun was made? Is this not what Jesus meant in 
saying, "I am the light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
this world?" Can man live without it? It makes us light- 
hearted and full of joy, and was undoubtedly the light which 
Jesus referred to in speaking of the body's being made full of 
light. Do we not electrify ourselves by the sound of the voice? 
The body is made of subconscious spirit, and responds readily 
to every suggestion made to it. And Jesus spoke to the bodies 
of the sick as much as he did to their minds. Vve have the same 
influence upon the ignorant stuff we are made of as God had 
upon darkness when he commanded light to be. Every word we 
utter, every thought we think, sends magnetic spirit into our 
bodies to give pleasure, health, and life, in place of pain, weak- 



96 THE WAY 

ness. and death. The spirit called the Christ, whom Jesus called 
the Father, is the same magnetic spirit that begets childxeiL Not 
did he mean himself in saying, *'I am the way, the resurrection, 
and the life." But he meant the Father — the Ego — from whom 
he derived all his power, the same as we do at the present time. 
Am I not the ^o in my soul as much as I am this body, which is 
called by my name ? The body needs sa\'ing from its weakness, 
pains, diseases, and danger of going all to pieces at death the 
same as any machine does when worn ouL Man is a compound 
being, made up of parts, anyone of which may become defective, 
and thus impair ihe czi ::::; ci the whole thing. Of course, the 
father who made it cannot be lost; but he may lose some part of 
his work through careless management of his son whom he has 
placed in charge of i:. This requires a little explanation. The 
one who has charge of the machine of many parts is a mere reflec- 
:i::i c: ihe father (or the life of the machine) an image reflected 
in the mirror called the mind. If the mind is in any manner 
cefeeuve the power and life of the machine will be correspond- 
ingly defective in its image, and the machine works badly. Now 
this image is what is called man, who, by sympathy, assumes the 
title of his father. Man is in fact the exact image of his father, 
even to the n:»ii.e, T am:" for the similacrum of power has a 
shade of its origin in ii. As pr: ;usly stated, the Father is 
magnetic spirit; and the image man is also magnetic in a less 
degree with the further capacity of acquiring more from the 
Father. 

The image-making power of man is in his soul, which is 
t}-pically and materiaih expressed as the womb in woman, in 
whose secret and vei.ti releases :he work of creation is carried 
on. This is the shrine before which men and gods do worship, 
*'but never may lift the veil of Isis without the shedding of 
blood;'' since behind this veil dwells the savior of the race whose 
blood contains the magnetic spirit which is the life of all who 
believe Ln it. It is obvious, therefore, that this image-making 



THE WAY 97 

power (the imagmatioii) is the feminine principle in the S(mi1, 
which draws the soul and the body to herself, sioce it is the femi- 
nine nature to clasp and to embrace, as the over-soul does, all 
that she loves. 

The refraction of light shovrs the unreliability of all re- 
flections, and this is true as to those we make of the father. The 
nature of the outer, or masculine, of anything is to yield to its 
own inner-force. To give, is the masculine law of being, for 
which reason Jesus commanded, "Give to ever\'one that asketh, 
and he that would borrow of thee, turn not away." "And to him 
who takes thy coat, give also thy cloak. Resist not, but return good 
for eviL" The inner reflects the outer, as mind renecis and 
carries what it sees to the scml, where it is moulded a: : :. i.g to 
the fancy of her who is the imagination of man. Thu = i : r - :: r 
become what he will by the image he makes of the father in his 
own mind and scul. Life is free — ^it must make its own way. It 
Tcyr r :: ' : e itself; but it may lose its way in the image it makes 
c: : -7 : : er :h:.t begets all life. Life and light are the same, 
vii the father, the reflection of which is the con- 

i .-_;:. ir : ::illed the Ego; but refraction makes images 

of otter things besides the Ego, and stray rays of light may pro- 
duce ; . ns in the soul that grow into ruling forces, such as a 
husband often is to the wcsnan who loves him instead of the Ego 
in herself. See the curse put upon Eve. Salvation is an indi- 
vidual work; and the Sa^'io^ is in our souls if we truly reflect the 
father into thenu 



93 THE WAY 



LIFE 

Nature produces things in itself, never out of itself, because 
there is no outside of nature any more than there is to nothing, 
ignorance, or darkness. We see intelligence manifested by light; 
but the light always shines from darkness, or from objects tliat 
are more or less dark. Science declares that darkness is the 
absence of light; but the query arises, how can light issue from 
darkness as it does from dark objects that are in combustion, 
such as a match or any dark torch ? Nature hides all her opera- 
tions in darkness, the shadow of herself, as light nocals the power 
of darkness, so does intelligence nocal the power of ignorance, 
which is to mind what the body is to man, viz., something to 
dv;ell in and hide from others of the same kind. 

It is said "knowledge is power;" but (and marvelous in- 
deed is the statement!) the power of ignorance cannot be esti- 
mated, nor itself at all comprehended, not even when it appears 
to us in forms that burn with light. Marvelous, also, and beyond 
comprehension is the statement that material life and intelli- 
gence, darkness, matter, and ignorance are synon}Tnous terms, 
meaning the myster}' of being, which is revealed, in part only, by 
light and life — male and female principles — whose action and 
reaction in ignorance, darkness, and matter produce all manifes- 
tation. Of these three, matter only is tangible and corporeal, and 
hence the substance or body of things that are made of the other 
two, which are not made at all but which are self-existent, and 
infinitely extended. There is no limit to darkness or ignorance; 
but the former bounds and limits mundane things, while the 
latter limits the manifestation of the life and light of things. 
Light nocals the power of matter to become spirit and to move, 



100 THE WAY 



while life nocals the power of the body to become a conscious, 
living thing, capable of becoming an immortal entity. Light is 
the principle called intelligence, which is that of growth, or be- 
coming, while life is the principle of unchangeable, conscious 
being. As extended and all-pervasive as darkness may be, it 
contains light, with its feminine counterpart life-hidden within, 
to its most remotest bounds, and to its most minute productive 
source. Light makes material things of darkness. If I am asked 
to explain how darkness can be made solid, like rocks or coal, 1 
can only call attention to the fact that water is made of gases 
which are but slightly more material than darkness. All power 
dv/ells in darkness, and light and life give it birth and show it 
to the world. Darkness is self-existent, it cannot be made. It 
fills infinite space, and in it is light and life. As light dwells in 
darkness, so dwells life in light. Darkness being the body, mind 
is the light in it, and the life of man is in his mind, buried in a 
night of ignorance far more densely dark than was ever seen by 
mortal eyes. 

As material light is necessary for physical existence, so also 
is the light of mind, or of thought, necessary for a spiritual or 
mental existence; but the latter is wholly dependent upon the 
former, the same as light depends upon darkness to shine in, or 
of thought for something to think about, for its manifestation of 
life. The light alluded to is that which God spake into being 
in the dawn of creation, viz., the magnetic light which gives life 
to offspring of every kind, and which of course is the Father 
in Heaven, the conscious Ego hidden in the darkness of our 
bodies and minds. "Call no man father on earth, one is your 
father," in your own soul, from which you grew, as a tree grows 
from an acorn. 

The only way by which light can become a unit or particle, 
is by the way of begetting itself in its own mother, the darkness 
out of v.'hich it comes; and the same is true in regard to life 
dwelling in light, it is one homogeneous, unpartable, whole-com- 



THE WAY 101 



plete, and perfect in its own self -consciousness, which can in no 
possible manner become atomized or individualized except in 
being begotten in its own ignorance by the light it is in. We 
grow out of the ground, by sending up something not planted. 
In this manner does ignorance embody all animal life, out of 
w^hich intelligence is manifested. Where ignorance exists there 
is life and sometimes intelligent life; but life never is without 
ignorance because it is always in it, as one is in his body. Life 
may not be intelligent; but it is ahvays ignorant; it is born so it 
is the way of life, from which it can never escape- — struggle 
against ever so much. Ignorance is the circumference, "the 
jumping-off place," the end of existence. Ignorant w^e cease to 
be, because there is no law or order in ignorance; and man exists 
by the harmonious working together of many parts, each one of 
w^hich must be a law to itself by virtue of the life it contains, 
since life is law and order, and all that pertains thereto is Deific, 
the Ego in all conscious living things. Life, as we see it, mani- 
fests in countless objects, of all sizes, shapes, and powers, every 
one of which is materialized in its own ignorance; therefore, all, 
every object, is, in a sense, Deific, and each one represents Deity. 
If in doubt of this proposition, consider nature's ways, and learn. 
She works from within outward by the expansion of her life; 
hence everything that is made is life, either awake or awaking 
from sleep. Is it not a fact that sleeping things grov/ faster than 
those that are moving ? Nature becomes things while she sleeps ; 
and the things she becomes gradually aw'ake out of their sleeping 
natures, which they carry, as forms or ways in which life moves 
and sleeps. Therefore all life is natural and all that nature does 
for it is done through sleep, as that is the way in which life visits 
its home. Life is the heart-blood of nature; and the Ego is the 
heart that keeps it circulating. Beyond nature there is nothing; 
but, in the life of the nature of things, buried deep in its own 
ignorance, is a mental universe that remains to be explored. It 
cannot be formed an^^vhere but in yourself; it is yourself, since 



102 THE WAY 

you are ignorant of this wonderful body you dwell in, of its uses, 
and the purposes of it. It is said to be evil, full of temptation, 
pain, disease, and death. No one knows the good of it; but all 
know the evils of it. The body knows nothing, can do nothing; 
and yet we can do nothing without it. Neither can the mind 
understand without ignorance, any more than light can shine 
without darkness to shine in. Heat dwells in, and works in 
ignorance of the body, for the production of life and the light 
of it. Ignorance is nothing, how then can heat dw^ell and work 
in it? We may ask the same question about the vacuum in a 
gun-barrel, which is nothing and cannot exist without the barrel 
outside of it, nor is the gun-barrel and the vacuum in it of use 
without a change in it, which, by its explosion, shows the way in 
which dark matter becomes light and life. It is by magnetic 
explosion that sparks of bright living matter are evolved; and, 
although such sparks die in the cold darkness surrounding, they 
never return to their source but remain atoms of ignorant matter 
containing heat for another explosion. Now the soul is a vacuum, 
the feminine principle in the body (gun barrel) of every person; 
and life is feminine, hence it is the vacancy surrounding all as 
the over-soul, and dwelling in each, as part of soul of everything. 
Thus it is obvious how nothing, or ignorance, becomes something, 
a part of each individual; and an important part it is, since no 
sound, no speech, or expression of life can be without an explo- 
sion of force and a discharge of magnetic spirit. Such is loiown 
as the birth of animal and human life, and we may well conclude, 
of spirit life also. 

Life is all, and in all ignorant things. It is the feminine 
principle, or the inmost soul of things, and may be otherwise 
expressed as Desire, the principle of hunger, thirst, or want. 
Desire is the ruling power of man, and therefore is life, as repre- 
sented by organic being known as the Ego. Desire is the power 
in the Ego that sustains and perpetuates the machinery of man; 
hence it is the very foundation, the subconsciousness, or body, of 



THE WAY 103 

him stored up with magnetic spirit. A man is what his spirit 
is; and, as life is the spirit of man, and, without being organized, 
it has no desire or other pov/er except the power to move and 
thus to prepare by expansion a vacancy like an empty stomach, 
soul, or womb, in which desire is produced, and an organization 
of itself into the lowest conceivable forms of life is effected. The 
wind has life in it, but it has no intelligence or directing power ; 
and the same is true in regard to life or any spirit that is not a 
form of some kind. 

Desire cannot exist without a vacancy of some sort, and a 
vacancy is an empty stomach, a womb, or a soul, wherein motion 
originates, and life begins to unfold, whatever powers may be 
slumbering within. 

We know that life exists and works without any conscious- 
ness of itself or of what it is doing. Wind, water, and food all 
contain unconscious life, which is the substance, the ignorance, 
or the oil that burns to make the light of reflection, whereby un- 
conscious life is impregnated and made to produce the conscious- 
ness of man. The mysteries of being that are hidden from man 
are in his own soul, of which he is ignorant; therefore whatever 
is discovered or learned by us is already in us, merely waiting 
for our recognition of it. That is the meaning of the saying of 
Jesus in regard to prayers, "Pray, believing that ye have already 
received what ye ask for;" for all that we can ever have or be is 
lying latent in the unconscious life which we call our bodies. 

We know nothing of the lives we have lived in the infinite 
past, nor do we know of the lives we shall live in the endless 
future; for life is eternal, and man, as its highest and greatest 
production, is entitled to duration if he desires and wills to work 
for the same. Desire is in and of the flesh, wherein every reflec- 
tion or thought takes root and grows as a tree does, bearing life 
as its fruit. The Ego works in ignorance, without instruction, 
and N^dthout patterns. Its work is altogether imaginary. That 



104 THE WAY 

is why so many grotesque and hideous looking objects meet us 
at the beginning of our world history. We know no Ego only 
as we find it in living things; but, since it is a fixed, unchange- 
able rule of action, we conclude that it represents all that is, and 
that, therefore, it is related to and dependent upon all for its 
inspiration, hence it is the inspiration power of man. 

But, as life is not a result of law, but is lavy' itself, its work 
is not limited by fixed rules, but it reflects as man the uncertain 
reflection of itself in its own guess-work of creating the lower 
animal life, which was made prior to that of man. Instinctive 
life, therefore, is what we call the Ego of man. It is the source 
of intuition and inspiration, as well as of all rash and hasty 
action, or of action not directed by thoughtful reflection. Vv'hat 
does the tree of life and root of knowledge spoken of in the 
Biblical stor}' of the Garden of Eden signify ? The apprehension 
is there expressed that man, by the acquisition of twofold knowl- 
edge, became possessed of the power to find the way to the tree 
of life, and, partaking of its fruit, to live forever. Now we have 
partaken of the fruit of knowing, and we think we know good 
and evil. But really, what do we know of the good of life or the 
evils of deatli ? If to know good and evil is Godlike, it certainly 
is no great thing to be God, since the beasts of the field know 
pain and pleasure. It is more consistent with our notion of 
things to suppose that God-power consists in knov/ing the good 
of Evil, since he is the author of both and certainly must know 
what they are for. 



Were man not a limited being there could be no progress; 
and, if there were only one spirit or one thing in existence, there 
could be no motion or life. Therefore, from the fact that some 
things are better (in our estimation) than others, we arrive at 
the truth that evil is as much a necessity to man as Good, since 
existence cannot be Vv^ithout the two, and since two cannot exist 
without a third thing between them to separate and to regulate 
the opposing forces. That which is above acts' upon that which 
is beneath, which in turn rises up; and, by contact, as by flint 
and steel, fire that burns in earth, suns and stars, as well as in 
human blood, and passions, a force, which is both good and evil, 
is produced. As cold falls and heat rises, so are the wheels of 
creation made to revolve, and living things are propagated. This 
is the great law whereby life is forced into mortal bodies; but 
that which is beneath, and therefore less than that which is 
above, is called evil because it receives the force that produces 
the fire in human life. But which is best, is left for him to say 
Vv'ho resides between these two forces and furnishes the fire, 
which is the light on life's eternal way. Who is this then, who 
calmly stands between opposing forces, an unprejudiced spec- 
tator and judge of all differences between good and evil, the 
strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the 
unfortunate, the high and the low, or the male and the female 
of every manifestation of life, since life never exists in any man- 
ner unless it be visibly dual? 

But life is invisible as well as visible, since all objects are 
surrounded and separated from others of like visibility by space, 
which contains far more and greater life than the things we see, 



106 THE WAY 

since objects cannot exist without space around as well as within 
them. Space is nothing; but it contains the creator of something 
called things; and that is the consciousness which in organic 
form is known as the Ego, out of which life issues by the way of 
motion, sensation, thought, and intelligence. It is absurd to 
suppose that creative genius is satisfied with the present order of 
things. Even weak man would make things better if he could; 
and this aspiration is always found in the weakest, lowest, and 
those who have the least and feel the most. 'Tt is the under dog 
which vrants to get up." He that has had enough of miser}- is 
full — pregnant and ready to be delivered — and that which is 
born of misery is certainly an improvement. 

Herein is visible the fundamental principle of evolution, 
viz., the natural superiorit}' of offspring to parentage. If man 
was as he should be, every child would be superior to its visible 
or material parents; for the Creator of offspring is in realit}' the 
conscious fire evolved by the contact, friction, or embrace, of the 
two opposing forces, called male and female; and fire cannot be 
said to be either one or the other, but superior to both, since it is 
light — the maker of all that is made. 

If it was the law that offspring should always be superior 
to the parent, the journey of life would be direct, continuous, and 
without incentive to efi'ort and the development of energy, 
thought, or feeling; and, therefore, nature has wisely placed ob- 
stacles in the vray of life's progress, which causes the electric 
force, the life of man, to move in any other way than in a direct 
manner, which results in the complete filling of the universe w^th 
one fiash of light, and the life it produces. Any reflection of 
light from its true or direct course increases its vibrations, the 
effect of which is to increase friction and the sensations or off- 
spring of life. Now this is just what the writer of Genesis was 
tr\ ng to explain by the stor}^ of the Garden of Eden. Of course 
no sensible person thinks God ever cursed the things he had made 
in the manner stated; but ever}'one who feels the pains of evil 



THE WAY 107 

and of maternity knows of their potency and disease-producing 
power. 

But God, or no God, these curses exist in the very nature of 
things, and, in spite of the misery and the evils they produce, 
the spectator, he who stands between the one who suffers and the 
one who causes the pain, knows the good of the evils we feel. 
He knows that evils are simply spurs to produce greater efforts 
on our part to overcome the obstacles, thereby increasing power 
of thought. He who feels the most, thinks the most; and he who 
thinks the deepest, climbs the highest and sees the good of every 
evil and every curse that afflicts humanity. 

It is written that for "Adam's sake" the ground was cursed; 
surely, toil, sweat, and misery are good for the ignorant if sensa- 
tion and thought are productive of more life. Who can doubt that 
this is the way that the Ego — He who is eternally conscious — 
takes to increase the range of such consciousness? Remember, 
we, in no vv^ay, assume the Ego, to be more than a reflection of the 
perfect whole ; and the two — the male and female — are the means 
of such reflection. The female, being less than the male, is that 
in which such reflex takes form for another incarnation, or is 
drawn into the Ego to increase its power. Now this is the point 
upon which the immortality of man hangs. Man is an automatic 
reflex of life, which takes up and continues the reflection of 
itself according to the mother or the mind that receives it; and, 
hence, the condition of the mother, the mirror, the mind, or the 
Vv^omb, wherein it continues the formation of itself, is of vital 
importance to the image that is in process of formation, since she 
can make a material being of it or she can convey it to the Ego, 
v/hich is the father of it, since the Ego is made more powerful 
by the life it receives from the feminine or mother principle. That 
which is above contacts the over-soul, wherein life, in a subcon- 
conscious state, awaits re-incarnation. The greatest, most over- 
whelming force of the world is from above ; and it descends to the 
lowest by way of the male to that which needs such force to 



108 THE WAY 

enable it to become full of what it needs, and that is the human 
soul, whose prototype is the womb of woman, considered by all 
as the Holy of Holies, behind whose veiled entrance rests the 
conscious I, the Ego of all life, whose reflex in matter was called 
Eve in the Scriptures, because "she is the mother of all living." 

Now the natural tendency or desire of an}thing forced from 
its home is to return thereto if left free ; and a ray of light obeys 
the same law, whether it be called Eve or her thought, if the ser- 
pent be considered as her thought. It sprang from the Ego in 
her soul, producing a reflection in her ignorance, which would 
have returned to the Ego had it not found lodging in Adam, 
where it grew the experiences that enabled Adam to know Eve, 
whereby she conceived and bore Cain, a man from the Lord. 

The consciousness that became the Ego of Cain was that of 
both sexes, and would have gone to the Ego in her soul to in- 
crease her power and freedom had her desires remained as they 
were before Adam knew her. Self-love is the first instinct of all 
living things ; but, whenever this love is drawn from the Ego out- 
wardly to any object whatever, the Ego loses its freedom and be- 
comes a slave to that which is loved. This was the curse put 
upon Eve: "Thy desires shall be to thy husband, and he shall 
rule over thee." The law is, "Love the Lord thy God with all 
thy mind, might, and strength" — that is to say, with all the love 
thou hast — and this being self-love is Egotistic love. "And thy 
neighbor as thyself" is the same thing, which perfects individ- 
uality and makes one free. There is no question as to the value 
of this law. If everyone loved the life in himself in preference 
to the sensations produced by the actions of such life upon ex- 
ternal things, there would be no avarice or slavery in existence. 
It is the reversion of this natural love to that which is foreign 
that is destructive to the health and welfare of the race. And 
the imaginary locating of God as a power separate and apart 
from the soul itself is the same as any other object of worship, 
viz., idolatry. But the peopling of the world, and the multiplica- 



THE WAY 109 



tion of women's conceptions, and the conceptions of the mind of 
man, makes man a creator indeed of himself and others. 

On this mundane plane of being, two things are necessary 
in order to create motion, viz., a large and a small force; and as 
force cannot be measured except by forms of matter, the large 
form may be supposed to fill the universe, and the small force 
to be an atom of the the same thing in the midst of the other or 
larger form. Now size makes them different from, and hence 
antagonistic to, each other. Now the larger force, which per- 
vades and fills all space, is the law of Equilibrium, or a centri- 
petal force, a force that draws to a center, that concentrates spirit 
into forms of matter which it embraces with all its power, since 
it is masculine, and loves the center as the feminine or weaker 
part of himself, and his love makes her warm and full of his 
power. Now pressure long continued by a large, strong thing 
upon a weaker produces resistence; and, if the weak has any life- 
power in itself, it will turn, wriggle, and twist to relieve and to 
protect itself. Thus is the law of motion created, and worlds 
formed and moved to produce living things by love, according 
to the law of generation as manifested in the propagation of man 
and animals. The first law being love, the second law is the 
movement of matter in the generation of a third law that makes 
matter wriggle, twist, and turn in its effort to be free. This law 
is the great serpentine law of repulsion, allegorically called the 
serpent in Genesis, but by St. John called the word "that in the 
beginning was with God, and which was God, and all things 
were m_ade by him, and without him there was nothing made, 
that was made; in him was life, and life was the light of men." 

There is nothing more repulsive than a serpent; and for 
that reason the serpent was chosen as a fit representation of the 
law of opposition to the universal law of harmonious rest, which 
existed under the law of attraction, or love. The function of 
attraction is to gather vital force into body, mind, and muscle 
preparatory to action. It fills us full of life and power; but it 



110 THE WAY 



never pushes out or strikes a blow. It is, in fact, the law of non- 
resistence which produces no progressive movement, but on the 
contrary produces a whirl whereby more life is accumulated, to 
the point of explosion, or birth of the force of repulsion, or the 
serpent, which is the first and only begotten of the law of love. 
Laws are produced as human beings are produced ; they are con- 
ceived and born of the necessities of life; but there would be no 
progress, no improvement of condition, were it not for the viola- 
tion of law. The reader must bear in mind that we are talking of 
the very beginning of things, and existence had its infancy as 
well as everything that is formed. 

A child in the womb is a serpent prior to being a child. 
By this we know that the serpent is what Jesus claimed to be, 
viz., the way of life and the resurrection from death, which, of 
course, requires motion, the beginning of which is by wriggling, 
twisting, and turning as worms do, and as a growing foetus in 
the womb does. We are certain that the fullness of love makes us 
move, and motion makes us feel, and feeling makes us think, 
and thinking makes us see that the serpent is a spiritual sense 
in motion, the spirit of the Ego. The old Rosicrucian adage, 
"The above is the same as the below," is correct in view of the 
fact that from the view-point of the soul any direction from the 
soul is up, and above is the over-soul, infinite virility, or cold; 
and the center, being a smaller, weaker, finite soul, is of like 
nature; and, deprived of its freedom, immovable, helpless, cold, 
burning with an irrepressible desire to return to its home in the 
over-soul, she exhales from herself the spirit of her fire, which 
spirit is the moving force of the universe, which, in the womb, 
takes or assumes the form of a serpent, the first material thing 
that can lift up its head and look heaven in its face. 

The serpent is an emanation, a moving spirit, from the Ego 
of its mother — a reflection called man because it becomes man 
by transformation, or by being born into another sphere, or plane 
of being. In this plane there is reflection from without as well 



THE WAY 111 



as from the Ego, for which reason he is an infant of external 
reflections until he is able to think for himself; hence, man is 
almost wholly made up of things that are external to him — 
things that he feels, sees, thinks about, and knows. So it is 
obvious that the life of man is dependent upon what he imbibes 
from without, rather than from the Ego in his own soul; hence 
it is perfectly natural that the reflection from within should be 
divested to that which is outward, and the life reflected within 
takes the form of that which is desired or loved. This is just 
what the curse put upon Eve, and the serpent, signifies ; for they 
are intimately connected. In the first place, the serpent was 
cursed with enmity placed between them and they produced. Now 
enmity is the death of life; and, since life is magnetic, it is 
readily seen how enmity weakens and destroys the life of man. 

The next curse upon woman was in the multiplication of her 
sorrows and her conceptions by the diversion of her desires from 
the Ego of herself to her husband, who is external, and hence her 
opposite, or stronger reflection, which, of course, bears rule over 
her. Now these curses are all in the make-up of man; and they 
are obstacles to his attainment of a greater and a more complete 
life. From a spirit reflection of the Ego of the mother, the ser- 
pent in the womb is transformed into a human form, being con- 
scious of being one life, one thing only. 

Now, if spirit is the only substance in the womb, how can 
that substance become human? The only possible answer is, 
by its own conceptions or the conceptions of the mother in which 
it. is confined. Now, that which conceives is the thing that grows; 
and, although the mother may change in size, she is not trans- 
formed by such change, but remains still mother, capable of pro- 
ducing more offspring, while the foetus is gradually transformed 
by the continuous reception of more spirit. It is obvious, then, 
that conception is simply reception, while the begetting is merely 
the act of supplying that which is received. Every growing ob- 
ject is conceptive by nature, and that which moves and thus com- 



112 THE WAY 

pels it to conceive is surrounding force, which compels all objects 
to fill up — become pregnant, and bear fruit. As a mother can 
conceive and bear several offspring at one time, so does the foetus 
in the womb conceive of the life of many things besides that of 
the serpent. For instance, man has the spirit of many of the 
lower order in himself, and they never got there unless they were 
conceived and grew as his flesh did. The tiger, the lion, the 
Milture, and the eagle are all in him, different forms of the 
same spirit, since spirit is die wood which begets and makes all 

that is made by virtue of its pressure upon that vrhich is inflam- 
mable and explosive. 

The imagination is the conceptive or the receptive power of 
soul, mind, and womb; and this is only another name for the 
Ego, or the serpent, which makes a magnet of all things. Life is 
only partially organic, and that which is not organized into 
forms is far greater than that which is organized, and ever}' 
one who has a will and power of thought can draw from inor- 
ganic life whatever he or she may desire, and thus re-create or 
build him or herself anew and keep new as long as desired; but 
bear this in mind, immortal life cannot be had from anything 
but yourself. All reflections of external things simply increase 
the serpentine, or power of the curses, in us, while the Ego, un- 
thought of and imrecognized, loses power of reflection and sleeps. 
Thus we make external, physical, decaying beings of ourselves; 
while, by pursuing the opposite course, we fill ourselves to over- 
flowing with an inner magnetic life, which creates new flesh and 
blood as we need it. As the serpent is an outward expression of 
an inward fire, and becomes man by its continuous outward 
movement, so may it be indrawn by a reversal of cur soul's 
desires and the serpent may be deprived of the poison of enmit}', 
which is destroying us. In this condition of our desires and 
loves, external things cease to afi'ect us, and the serpent becomes 
transformed into an imdying life called the Christ. We have 
power to take all the enmit}* out of ourselves, if we vrill not nurse 
it by reflecting the evils of life into our souls. 



CHRIST 

There is only one life but many states or conditions of that 
life. For instance, the life of a female is the same as that of the 
male, of a worm, the same as that of an Eagle, or of an angel, the 
same as that of a devil, or of a god. The difference is merely a 
matter of power, determined by the form it manifests in and 
from. Therefore, the life of a serpent is the same as the life 
called Christ. If the former be that of motion, agitation, or 
unrest, the latter is the opposite of it, viz., that of tranquility, 
joy, peace, rest. This truth is expressed in the life of man: in 
childhood, youth, middle age, until decrepit old age, it is like 
the troubled sea, never at rest; and even death merely forces it 
out of one thing into another, and the form it occupies gives it 
name, the same as a husband gives his name to his wife. Wher- 
ever life is, there is conception, generation and regeneration tak- 
ing place. As one day follows another, so does the life of one 
form take its character from a preceding form. Therefore the 
serpent life is the creative life, moving up tlirough every form, 
from the lowest crawling thing to that which soars aloft, or that 
which walks en two feet; and this changing of form changes the 
character and pov\-ers of that which occupies the form, whether 
such changes take place slowly or rapidly. This is life trans- 
formed by the changing of forms it occupies, whether it be one 
form or more, or in one year or a thousand years. The same life 
makes the serpent in the w^omb of woman that makes mosquitoes 
in a pond of water, since life is the word that in the beginning 
was God, and still is God, the creator and transformer of all 
forms. If, as theology claims, he was cast out of Heaven by the 
violation of the Divine command, it was not a change of place 



114 THE WAY 

but a change of condition, or a transformation from a state of rest 
and perfect satisfaction to a condition of unrest and work in the 
creation of progressive life rather than one of eternal stagnation. 

He was not cast out of Heaven ; for he remains in every soul, 
where his Kingdom is, as Jesus declared, saying, '"The Kingdom 
of God cometh not by obser\'ation, nor is it here nor there, for, 
lo, it is within you." To be out of Heaven is to be out of health, 
ease, or comfort. The feminine nature, as previously explained, 
is the soft, tender, inner part of ourselves, out of which the mind 
is evolved; and the mind is what is meant by the word Eve "the 
mother" of the serpent, or life. 

The importance of knowledge as the most direct way of life 
is shown in the word of God saying, "Xow therefore, seeing they 
have become as one of us by the use of knowledge — and lest 
they by its further use find out how to live forever.'' They were 
cast out of a state of blissful ignorance and cast into a state of 
uncertainty, requiring use of all the knowledge they possessed, 
or could acquire; and to prevent the acquisition of the right kind 
of knowledge the conceptions of the mind were multiplied to the 
confusion of all calm reflection which leads to peace, and gro\\th 
of tlie tree of life. The tree of knowledge grows from seed the 
same as any tree does. Ideas grow in the mind from seed blo\^Ti 
by the wind, or planted by any other force, such as a thought, 
or an emotion, since all moving things cause reflections in the 
mind v.'hich enable us to see the way of life more clearly. 

The acme of all human knowledge is that of the self, and 
self-knowledge grows from a conception of one's self in himself. 
This arises from a thought one thinks about himself, which, by 
continuous thinking, produces some kind of self-knowledge. 
We derive cur knowledge of ourselves from what we have done; 
for they have cast their reflections into our souls where they are 
made flesh. In our secret thoughts we know ourselves, since 
such thoughts are of the soul, where life resides. The body is 
made alive by life, and life is the thoughts we think. Thus do 



THE WAY 115 



we make ourselves by the thoughts we think from a contemplation 
of the Ego and the soul, wherein it is planted, with all the in- 
finite possibilities flowing therefrom, with which the ever»active 
serpent, his only son, connects him. Is not an acorn transformed 
into a tree ? And is not the acorn father of the tree ? The germ 
that makes the child is the father, and as the germ becomes tlje 
ct\ild and then the man, it is plainly sure that a man is his own 
father. The Ego is a conscious germ of life which in the womb 
makes, compels, or forces the body of man, beast, bird, or reptile 
to grow out of it. Man is a mere form containing life, which 
gets into it only by the way of conception. We cannot think 
unless we have something to think about, and conception draws 
life into us, which makes us think that the life is our own, since 
it is the nature of life to be the thing it occupies; but we cannot 
conceive all of life at once, we conceive it only in part, accord- 
ing to our capacity to contain it, while the whole universe of life 
crowds upon us asking for entrance. 

The elements that crowd upon and enter us beget life in 
us. Life cannot die, nor be lost in any other way than to be our 
loss. If it goes out of form it is lost to the form that claims to 
own it. To be conscious of life you must know it; and in order 
to have it you must conceive it as you can hold it; for you must 
remember you are but a small, weak reflection of a power that 
fills the immensity of time and space, all of which is yours if 
you can conceive it. My life is my father — my God — and there- 
fore we are one in form only, because I am lacking in the prin- 
ciple of greatness. 

We are sick or in pain because more life is striving to enter 
us than we can contain; and, unless the form of our lives grows 
greater through the conception of more and greater life, this form 
will lose the life it now claims as its own. 

Nothing belong to us except by possession; and our life 
only grows greater' by our conception of greater uses of it, for 
without use we certainly lose what we think we have. To per- 



116 THE WAY 

feet the form, then, is to perfect the manifestations of the life in 
such forms; and in order to perfect it one must keep it con- 
tinually full of life, whereby it is made to grow in its power of 
conception until there shall be no darkness or secret places there- 
in where the serpent-life may hide. 

The salvation of man, therefore, is physical; and it wholly 
depends upon the life of it, which is mainly made up of reflec- 
tions about looks, dignit}-, wealth, business, or the struggle to get 
and to keep things that perish in the use of them. 

It has taken a long time to light the lamp of life in you — 
and what kind of light is it? Made up as it is of such reflec- 
tions as cause unrest, toil, avarice, competition, strife, snd enmity 
— the very things that obstruct the way of life everlasting (which 
is a reflection of the Ego) and that increase and prolong the life 
of the serpent and prevent its return to the father's house, whence 
he originally came and to which he longs to return, as is e\4- 
denced by the pressure which compels things to fall away from 
life for the want of it. As man depends upon life for his exist- 
ence, and all that pertains thereto, its presen'ation is of vital im- 
port to us, and as man is made of parts by reflections that are 
fleeting, and needing to be controlled, law is a necessary of his 
being in order that the form may be perfect in its representing of 
the Ego, which is one, and, if one part disobeys the law, or for 
any reason gets out of order, the form \^ill fail in its work and 
will need to be repaired if possible. 

Now, in the case of man, the law that made him is certainly 
responsible for the way he operates. It is declared in the Scrip- 
tures that man was made of matter; and, as we know he is a hol- 
low or vacant form, and, as he is said to be male and female, the 
male part is the strong, coarse outside part, which, like a gun- 
barrel, can withstand the shock of an explosion from within, 
while the female part is the inner receptible part from which 
explosions come. Crudely expressed, man, as a unit, is like a 
self -charging and self-firing gun : the outside visible part corres- 



THE WAY 117 

ponds to the body which determines the sex and gives the name 
man to the inner vacancy, as well as to the outer strong part, 
which makes an explosion from ^vithin possible. 

Before sound was, universal silence existed; and that silence 
exists today as space; or the outside of forms exist, which move 
not, nor make a sound unless forced to do so. Ever}1;hing is made 
to exist according to law, and that law is invisible to the things 
that are made, nor is the law manifest except by the way of that 
which is made. 

Life exists, but it exists only in that which is not life. If 
the report of a gun exists prior to the explosion thereof, it cer- 
tainly exists in all that help make it, viz., the gunbarrel, the 
vacancy in it, and the charge that explodes — to say nothing of 
the outside force that is broken open and made to speak and move 
to vast distances, producing conditions which are new and prev- 
iously unkno'^Ti. From this it is known that a single cause can- 
not be — not a word spoken, nor motion made, which does not 
return to its source; and, in obedience to the same law, a reflec- 
tion from the Ego, like a spoken word, must return, after 
expressing its full meaning to him who utters it. And so it is 
with the serpent life of man. \Mien it has done its work of 
creating and perfecting the individual into whom it was trans- 
formed in the womb and in the circumstances it has been forced 
to work in, it begins a counter or opposite conformation of the 
entire being, effected by heartfelt sorrow for misconduct, and a 
radical change of thought and action requiring internal reflection 
upon one's conscious life — the Ego, or the Deit>' in one's own 
soul. We, as external things, make our own deities by our own 
words and actions; hence, it is obvious that the Ego contains, and 
is made up of, the life each one has lived; and, therefore, in 
order to reform the whole man, he must consciously return to 
his soul, the very way he came — that is, he must live his life 
over again in his mind to find the good of the acts he has com- 
mitted. There is no man li\^ng that has not done things which 



jtA-.-J---^ '^..yr, v. .- ■t;.,l...iy:,:,,- 



118 THE WAY 



he wishes he had done differently or had not done at all, and of 
which he is ashamed, and which he considers evil. But in look- 
ing back we sometimes find that our evil deeds have produced 
great good for us, which we would scarcely part with for any 
consideration; and good thus found is kin to the all-good, the 
Ego, of every life — known as the Christ, the forgiving principle 
of God himself. 

It resuires no great knowledge to know good and evil, since 
the beasts of the field know what is good or not good for them to 
eat; but to know the good of evil is an antidote for every poison, 
a cure for every ill, a pardon for every sin; it is, in fact, the high- 
way to immortality — the knowledge that the Gods alone possess. 
Some things move and live without being conscious of what they 
do, showing that to know is greater than life; in fact, it is the 
father of life, and hence has power to control it and to direct its 
creations, and the retrospection of one's past life is in response to 
a command from the conscious Ego to life to compel it to retrace 
its steps and to perfect itself so that whatever form it is made to 
occupy will be deathless and unchangeable, except from within. 
The life of a man that turns to seek its source must of necessity 
carry all its previous experiences along with it unless he cuts 
loose from them, which is accomplished by finding the good of 
the lives he has lived. All his passions, his loves, ambitions, 
prides, hopes, fears, enmities, jealousies, etc., etc., are the spirits 
of the myriads of lives he has lived in. Insect, fowl, reptile, and 
animal, as well as human forms, he has occupied, producing 
disease and death. All these must be indrawn, and made one 
with the life of him who aspires to immortality, since no form of 
life can be left out. As we have seen, the mother is in things and 
all her aspirations are good, because she is the mother of life, 
whether it be a good or an evil spirit. 

It is life that forms our bodies and that prompts all our acts, 
hence life alone is responsible. But life is in the form ; and, as 
before stated, that which is in is mother, and as such it is made 



THE WAY 119 

to suffer. The heart, lungs, liver, intestines, the blood, the 
brains, and even the mind — all of which are different forms of 
mother — cannot vvork or produce without life, which is the gen- 
erative principle of consciousness — the father of life and consort 
of the mother. It is obvious that neither life, its mother, nor its 
father, are, in any sense of the word, material beings, but that, 
on the contrary, they are purely imaginary. Which brings up the 
thought that possibly this despised power in man must be in 
some way connected with the origin of things. The idea of being 
suggests form, since without form nothing exists ; and there is no 
power that can make something from nothing, except the imagi- 
nation, or the power of reflection in man. It is the feminine or 
conceptive principle in man. It is that which works in nothing, 
as life vv'orks in a vacant v;omb into which it is forced at concep- 
tion and compelled to make a human being of itself. 

Nature is purely an imaginary thing, and so is the mind of 
man; and yet they exist as the nature of an individual exists, 
made up of what he imagines himself to be, and which he is 
made by the working of the mother in nothing, which is the same 
as life in that it has no form. 

It is said that knowledge is power ; but if we may judge from 
v/hat v/e see the imagination of man has created more things, 
both good and evil, than can be enumerated. It leads thought 
even, and is the inspiration of the word, the origin of poetry, 
taste, literature, religion and beauty. But it is nothing after all 
compared with what we know. Do we not know that conscious- 
ness is not a thing? But it is the greatest power known. And 
the Ego, although it sees and knows, is simply the consciousness 
of being something — we know not what. Call it man if you like; 
but he is nothing but a form which is far from being perfect, 
and which may be changed at any time from within, but never 
from w^ithout itself. There can be no existence without form, 
and the first of a,ll forms is a form made of spirit in nature. 
Nature and Spirit are one and the' same, with this difference : 



120 THE WAY 

Nature is unchangeable and immovable, while spirit is always 
moving in nature, and hence, is the mother who creates things 
from nature. A man's nature is like his body: it encloses him, 
by reason of which man is mother, while the nature of man is 
the serpent transformed into human form. 

The soul is a form of spirit, made by the incessant whirl of 
spirit in the nature of body whereby a vortex, void of spirit, is 
formed, into which the dregs of spirit fall, subside, or settle, as 
the cinders, or ashes, of a fire become cool, inert, and material. 
In other words, by violent motion, excessive heat and fire are 
produced in the spirit, since spirit is combustible and inflam- 
mable as wood and oil are, which has a tendency to refine the 
nature of man, sending the finest to make up the soul, while the 
coarse subsides in cooling and becomes bones, flesh, blood, etc., 
of the body — all that we know of the substance of spirit or of 
its substantiality. This vortex in the human form is the soul, 
the home of life — a reservoir of magnetic spirit, the most subtile 
of all the elements — ^that which pulsates, and, whirling, forms a 
vacuum in itself, wherein worlds form and whirl also. Of this 
subtile agent — this power which makes and moves everything 
that has form, and without which man cannot exist — we know 
almost nothing. It dwells in the coarsest and the finest of mat- 
ter where iron is — both in metal and also in blood — and for all 
we know it makes both, as well as the mountains where it sleeps, 
and the living forms in which it makes the blood leap for joy 
and blush with conscious pleasure as it runs. Magnetism is 
the life of things, and the soul is its workshop, where it makes 
what the body needs, the same as the womb in a woman makes 
her offspring. Motion purifies everything, and the blood that 
turns back to the heart is made purer as it runs — that is, it be- 
comes more magnetic, the nearer it approaches the heart. The 
same is true in regard to the life that turns back to retrace the 
physical way by which it became the thing it is. The word 
Christ is a Greek word meaning life. It is the same as the 



THE WAY 121 



Hindoo name, Krishna, which means life. The Hindoo name 
for God, Life, (Krishna) on account of its power and indestructi- 
bility (seeing how little we get of it on earth) has always been 
loved and worshipped as the creator. 

Man has concluded that by some process or other, life can 
be made deathless — in some other world — ^but not here. And in 
trying to fit themselves for some other world they neglect life in 
this. This has been the case with poor, down-trodden, weak 
and enslaved India — the Magic land of philosophy and religion. 
But they have mistaken the way of life : they have sought the way 
to emancipate life from the body instead of perfecting the body 
so that life can remain in it. They long since discovered that the 
way of life is far greater in mind than in matter, and have tried 
to sever the connection of man with his body and its actions as 
far as possible. In this, by the practice of God and other vitio 
to us unknown, they have succeeded in demonstrating the power 
of man to perform wonders, such as the fakirs and other devotees 
do, for the edification of gaping crowds, with no other earthly 
use, while they starve and they die as others do. 

If religion and philosophy cannot teach how to live on this 
earth free from disease, pain, and death, until we go hence from 
choice and from our own volition, they are not worthy of the 
name. It is true that the way of life is mental; and, in our 
efforts to live mentally while here, our main object should be the 
care and perfection of the body in all its essentials. Mind is a 
matter of generation in and from the material we are made of, 
and the beginning of it is the conception of what we need. If we 
need more life, we must look to the nourishment of the body in 
connection, especially with its actions, whereby it is purified: 
the spirit of it is to be separated from the gross, the good from 
the bad, the coarse from the fine, forming new flesh and blood, 
bone and tissue continually. In this manner we make and un- 
make ourselves by our thoughts, desires, and motions; and in so 
doing we impart qualities to our make-up, which we recognize 



122 TKZ V.'AY 

as good, bad, and indinerent, which qualities belong alike to 
souls, spirits, minds, and bodies, but they are never separate. 

There is some good in ereiy bad, and scane bad in ereiy 
good. The indifferent is that part of us which is neither good 
n:: : :. i because it has no motion and no interest in what we do. 
It is, hovrever. iJe i::: .ciiiz, from this matter-of-fact plane 
of being into another plane where pain, disease, and death have 
no place. A ]:l:.-r ;: 7" r is not a place to which one may go, 
but it is 3. : :r 1: :z which may be attained on ihis einh or any 
other where life has 2. rerfer: form to dwell and move in. As 
prqxjsterous as this s:i:eziez: r-ii; rppear to be, the truth of it 
is ver!f ef '7 :hr l:::"e e /j^^:^- of magnetism, and by the won- 
derful ioiievemciiii cf liic xajdrs and Rahats of India. If half 
is true that is told (and vouched for) of their feats, they can 
make themselves proof against pain and pleasure, and live in an 
unconscious state for an indefinite length of time, and then take 
up life ag2.iz aS if no time had elapsed although they had been 
buried in the ground and a crop of oats had grown over the 
place "here .t ere furied. I az: z:: vouching for the truth 
of such tales ; but we know that life can exist without being con- 
scious, and also we know that the area of bodily consciousness is 
limited to the nervous system, and that the bcnes. gristles, hair, 
and nails en ile dngers and toes are wholly unizr-ious, and 
also :i.i: rrst of the operations of the body in healLQ are per- 
fcnrei ur. : insdously. From this, we may safely assume that 
ccr.s:: .:.LrSS is more an evidence of an imperfect condition 
raiT-tr :ii:^ a perfectly harmonious condition of man. 

Consciousness is hidden in the darkness of material things, 
and only the mc:i;r. :f such things can set it free. Xow, motion 
exists only in the movement of some: r.; r^ies itseK. since 
consciousness is not conscious of itself imless it be embodied, and 
then the body is known as the self into which conscicKisness is 
transformed, whereby the dull matter of the body is made to 
feel and to grow, or to evolve what is hidden therein. 



THE Vv^AY 123 

All growth is a transformation of that which is apparently 
nothing to something, or of invisibility to visibility and tangi- 
bility, or from ignorance to conscious knowing. All growth is 
transformation, rather than evolution, since there is no emana- 
tion from nature; but it has power to transform itself from per- 
fect rest into a spirit that cannot rest. In other words, nature is 
masculine, or cold, unfeeling vital power, which becomes femi- 
nine or weakness by the relaxation of the control of its own 
heat. This truth is obvious in our own experience: we become 
weak and effeminate when we allow the heat of passion to burn 
and to consume our strength. 

Now, souls differ in magnitude and in power; and the 
greatest, the strongest, the best, carry the most life, make the 
largest orbit, and live the longest; for all souls lose their life as 
they lose the heat they contain, by excessive vibration, owing to 
their proximity to the source of all heat whence they arise. Fire 
is the combustion of dark matter; and the force that makes fire 
burn causes all motion, and the existence of all souls, which are 
sparks emanating therefrom, which assume form and qualities 
that effect all material things. 

Nature transforms itself into every existing object; but the 
object does not emanate from, but remains in, nature, as much so 
as if it had not been changed. Nature contains all things; and in 
her operations she first transforms herself; or, by a revolution 
or by reversion, she becomes what appears to us as altogether 
superior to nature, while at the same time all that exists is in 
nature. Even matter (her first-born) is as mysterious and as 
incomprehensible as nature herself, containing all that nature 
contains, except cold, which is above — the masculine of it — but 
still as natural as the heat matter contains. Things and forces 
change conditions with each other; but nothing ever escapes 
nature; for when one is born he, she, or it has a nature bom with 
it that is its over-soul, or all-seeing, all-comprehensive I, which, 



124 THE WAY 



reflected in the human soul, is the Ego, the highest natural man 
yet produced, through which nature transforms herself in per- 
fecting life and the race. The matter of which we are composed, 
or endowed with, consists of certain qualities or qualifying in- 
fluences, which make our bodies what they are. 



TO BECOME 

To be is greater than to become, since we recognize our pres- 
ent ignorance and weakness. To become requires change, and 
change is the growth and ultimate transformation of that which 
desires to become into that which we desire to be. There can be 
no sane person who does not desire to become greater, stronger, 
and better than at present; and such desire reveals to us tlie 
powers, or the qualities, that "Keep the way" of life — to help or 
to retard our progress therein. 

There are no straight lines in existence. Every moving 
object or force must conform to the shape or contour of the round 
earth; hence, sparks of fire containing heat describe part of a 
circle or orbit w^hile they burn, which they complete as they lose 
heat in returning to their source in cold matter. 

Just so it is with the human soul that desires to become 
greater. Like a spark of fire we are projected from passion — 
burning material conditions — a germ of deathless life, borne in 
water, the body of it, which by some mysterious process becomes 
flesh in the mother, womb, in which, and of which, forms are 
made which are subject to change, and ultimate transformation 
into that which life desires. The great fundamental and tran- 
scendental law of nature and of her only son — her very life — is 
that of the power of transformation, or of becoming what we 
desire or will to be, desire being feminine power, the will being 
masculine. 

Nature transformed becomes visible, tangible in all objects, 
and intelligent in some. Nature, being inorganic, can do nothing 
directly, but must produce that which can do for her what she 
desires; hence, she transforms herself into spirit, which, in turn, 



126 THE WAY 



by transformation, or concentration of its fonnless, intangible 
substance, becomes matter, of which things are made. But in 
all such changes life is the prime moving force, a spark of which 
makes the heat in matter, from which we learn that life makes 
its own mother. This may sound strange from the fact that the 
form called woman is said to be the mother of her offspring — 
and so she is, in an outer or material sense — but the real truth 
is that life never leaves its mother, since the germ of life that 
is projected into the womb is carried in a watery spirit-mother to 
its destination, where it does the work of clothing the germ with 
a body, more or less perfect, according to the good or the bad 
qualities of the spirit-mother, of which such body is composed. 
Woman is merely the work-shop in which life makes the material 
garment it wears, most of which comes from its past actions, 
which follow it as part of itself. Life is the way — an orbit of 
the soul in w^hich it moves round and round, as the world does, 
from start to finish, which it never finds, an orbit that starts in 
the heat of man's material form, as sparks leave a burning fire, 
to rise and to fall as they cool into ashes, material of another 
nature, to start again, and to return again and again, always 
moving in an orbit of life without end. The one who comes 
into this world is a spark — a mere reflection of lives lived prev- 
iously, which follows the soul as a child its parent, to be absorbed 
by the light of life, as insects are, becoming the material of which 
the body is made. 

The material section of the orbit of the soul is a very small 
fraction of it, since, by the death of its form, or end of its ap- 
pearance on earth, it is immediately transformed into an astral 
or mental body, in which life is in less bondage, and has power 
to change its orbit and to live another life on earth. 

Many are of the opinion that, because we are forced into 
this world, forced through it, and forced out of it again and 
again, we have no volition or choice in the matter any more than 
a leaf blown by the wind; consequently, those who believe this 



THE WAY 127 



are fatalists, trusting in some unknown foreign power to force 
them to become something, of which they know nothing and have 
no interest in becoming. This idea is nonsense when viewed 
from a natural view-point, since it contradicts every natural 
instinct of the human soul. 

If we know anything, we know that we must depend upon 
our ov/n efforts for what we get and use, and if there is any force 
about it, that force is surely in ourselves. We have power to 
resist any and every external force, but almost no power over 
the forces that are in ourselves. We grow outward whether we 
will or not. The body moves without thought, will, or any atten- 
tion whatever; therefore, it must be a machine that moves auto- 
matically by internal mechanism when once wound up, and the 
will is the power that winds it. It is said in the Scripture, "As 
a man thinketh in his soul, so is he," showing that by our own 
reflections, by our own thinking, are we made as we are; and, if 
so, our own thinking can make us whatever we desire to become, 
provided we think the right kind of thoughts — thoughts that will 
produce what we desire, since thoughts are seeds, from which 
molecules of matter form themselves into better or worse flesh, 
bones, tissues, and brains, whereby the power of life is increased 
by the kind of thoughts we think. If we have no volition we 
cannot think as we will. Let us honestly examine this idea for 
the truth of it. It is a fact that nature does not exist as an 
individual thing or force, but as many forces, each one having 
a function peculiarly its own. For instance, there is a force of 
nature called love, the function of which is to draw, accumulate, 
protect, and cherish the things it acquires, and it can do nothing 
else. It has no power to divide, scatter, weaken, or destroy any- 
thing, not even its deadly enemy, which is an opposite force just 
as natural as love, whose only function is to divide, weaken, 
scatter, and destroy the accumulations of the former, even the 
power of love itself; and it is utterly impossible for these forces 
to manifest contrary to their own natural impulses. It is need- 



128 THE WAY 

less to speak of the vast mukitude of natural forces that are 
obWous to all, each one of which has a function of its own to 
which it is limited. It is as impossible for pride to be humilit}* 
as it is for black to be white, "vsithout a total and complete trans- 
formation of its nature. It is the nature of fire to burn, the 
nature of life to live and to make things alive, since life is a 
spark from Nature's great internal forces, '"'whose worm dieth 
not, and whose fire is not quenched.'' 

What is man but a worm, begotten by fire in the waters of 
nature, as foetus that produces a human being. Life is the fire 
that heat makes in, and forces out of, matter, whose first appear- 
ance in a form of its own is that of a worm, in which is manifest 
the primal laws of nature — ^male and female — the power to 
shrink or to draw heat in (as cold does water to freeze it or to 
concentrate its power), to make itself alive with power to push 
and to pull, or to crawl along and increase its power to the point 
of sensation, out of which evolves the power to stand erect, to look 
upward and to think. A spark of fire is as truly fire as an ocean 
of it can be. It contains in a minute form all that a universe of 
fire contains, and it is the same with a spark of life. The aU- 
life is not all if a spark of it is absent from it, and it is the same 
with nature, which, being divided into many natures, has no 
existence as one, further than as the consciousness of every part 
of it. 

It follows then that the power of volition, or of voluntary 
life and movement, is inherent as much in a small way as in a 
large, so far as its sphere of action extends, if no farther than 
itself. A spark can bum itself out as well as a large fire can 
bum a house. The fact is, a thing moves of itself, primarily only 
in one manner — that is, upon itself, by drawing \'ital force into 
itself to become impregnated and to grow larger or more outward. 

But the power to resist impregnation is in ever}- li\'ing thing, 
and not a foreign force at all. 

Now this power of resistance is as truly a part of nature as 



THE WAY 129 



the power to breathe is, since it forces outward that which it has 
drawn in. 

Does this prove that the power of resistance can overcome 
and thwart the laws of nature ? Not at all, since nature supports 
both forces; and, although repulsion is evolved from attraction, 
it is evidently a greater law than its mother, as a thing is greater 
than the seed it is evolved out of. According to the law of evolu- 
tion, that which grows may become greater than its source, as a 
stream grows greater the farther it runs, and as a spark may 
produce a conflagration if it doesn't die. The idea is that the 
life in man may become greater by the exercise of its own powers 
to resist its own father, who is negative and helpless in the seed 
as any negative thing can be. The cause of all power is around 
us; but it is as negative as the body of man is. And the fire of 
life is supported by the body it is in, by impregnation from our 
surroundings, according to our own wishes and efforts. As a 
child controls its feelings, so do we control and use the forces of 
nature, which constitute the impregnating principle of nature, to 
make ourselves what we wish to become. The forces of nature, 
being external to us, are to be imbibed and consumed by our 
own fire. 

Souls differ as bodies and dispositions do, and consequently 
some stay longer on this earth than others; and the life lived will 
describe a larger orbit than those who die young, such as insects 
and most animals, showing that wisdom, intelligence, and moral 
qualities tend to prolong life. Every soul that is born has a 
nature born with it, which is composed of three qualities, viz., 
good, bad, and indifferent, previously described, which give 
character and disposition to all that are bom. Now these qauli- 
ties are brought into existence from universal nature by past 
lives, which follow the soul eternally, until drawn into the soul 
and transformed into good, which is life. 

Heat, the mother of life, dwells and works in the soul and 
the spirit, of which souls, bodies, and minds are made. 



120 THE WAY 



The two great qualities of matter — good and evil, weakness 
and strength, heat and cold, light and darkness, male and female 
— are creative principles of nature. The law of growth is: the 
negative absorbs the positive; the female takes the male; the 
weak absorbs strength; ignorance absorbs knowledge, etc., etc. 

There can be no evolution without involution preceding it, 
any more than birth can precede impregnation. In view of this 
principle of transformation, Jesus declared, "Except ye become 
as a little child ye cannot enter the Kingdom of power." A 
child is a t}^e of weakness, ignorance, and receptivity. It im- 
bibes intelligence and strength as it does food and air. Just so 
with the evolution of a tree from the germ of an acorn, or of a 
human being from the male spore. In the ground or in the vv^omb, 
the weak, helpless, negative germ is made alive and active by 
absorbing the positive elements of heat, light, and moisture, 
which enable it to transform itself from a germ to a tree or a 
human being, as the case may be, since the same law operates in 
the development of everj'^thing. Education is the transformation 
of ignorance into knowledge wherein it becomes a working 
mother for the conception of greater power. Civilization grows 
out of barbarism — that is, barbaric conditions become civilized 
conditions by reversion. It is by this same law that life moves 
on its way from one form to another, or man from a clod of earth 
becomes God-like, or the serpent in man becomes the Christ. The 
steps of eternal progress, by which man rises from nothing to 
something, are made by the transformation of his weaknesses 
and the evils which keep the way of his life into his very life 
itself, whereby it becomes his savior. Evil becomes good by 
transformation; and the only way whereby one can be trans- 
formed into the pure and the good, is by conception, by which 
he is in the way to be "born again." The test of true manhood 
is what we conceive ourselves to be. No man conceives himself 
to be worse than he really is; and herein is his only hope of be- 
coming better than he now is. 



THE WAY 131 



Matter is inconceivable except in connection with some 
form. Neither can a form be conceived without containing mat- 
ter of some sort. Nor is it possible to conceive of matter as one 
thing only, since w^e know it exists as many things and we cannot 
conceive contrary to our senses. In order to become greater, our 
present nature must be transformed into such nature as we con- 
ceive; for the mother that conceives and works to perfect such 
conception is in our very flesh and bones; and the father — the 
begetting principle — still remains in us the same as he was when 
he begot our present nature, for he cannot change of his own voli- 
tion, since he is an involuntary power, having no choice or 
volition. He is the vir of all living beings wliich run riot in 
human blood, firing it with deadly passions possessing neither 
reason nor pity ; but he has power to move the mother of flesh and 
bones to the conception of good and evil, the two great qualities 
of spirit and matter which compose all living beings. That which 
tempted Eve by suggesting the possibility of attaining a perfect 
life through disobedience is called the Serpent, the worm that 
dieth not, and the fire whose life is not quenched, he who in the 
beginning taught Eve the value of liberty and that the way of 
life lies in the denial of all affirmations or laws which restrict 
liberty, and prevent the evolution of good. 

The nature of an individual is his form or body, and the 
elements of that nature are results of our previous lives. We, 
therefore, are born from what we have done, born of our own 
actions, since the past is intimately related to the present; hence, 
the only true progress is in letting go of the bad and clinging to 
the good that makes us what we now are. This is what Jesus 
meant in saying, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off;" for the 
organs of the body are parts of our nature objectified. This 
merely signifies the internal warfare that must rage in the soul 
of those who aspire to become greater, stronger, and better than 
at present. To arise from a low nature to a higher one, requires 
a continual culture of the inner man, which consists in the trans- 



132 THE WAY 

formation of the darkness of this present nature into the light of 
a new one. There is some fire in every nature ; and the harder it 
is, the more it contains, and the heavier the blows necessar}' to 
strike a spark of transforming light therefrom. Our enemies are 
all in ourselves; and the only way to destroy them is to love 
them to death! Love is the death of passion and the birth of 
light, which purifies and transforms the darkness of nature into 
that which is pure, beautiful, and good; and as the nature 
changes so does tlie body conform thereto. In this manner only 
can man become immortal; for a nature, a soul, and a form are 
necessar}' to the individuality of life. 



THE EGO 

Said Jesus, "God is Spirit." But the question is, what is 
Spirit ? This question is not answered by its reversal. The word 
God was undoubtedly derived from the union of a consonant 
and a vowal sound: the "O" being feminine; the "D" being 
guttural, or masculine, a self-contained force, the heat that a 
cloud contains in a cold or electric state prior to an explosion or 
a sound accompanied by a flash of lightning, an expression of 
"Od" — the word that in beginning was with "G," and therefore 
was "G-od." Sound is in heat as heat is in cold, or cold in 
water, and water in a cloud that speaks in thunder tones, and in 
lighting the universe. Cold is the outside, or form of heat; 
and heat makes water of it, which is the first form that spirit 
assumes in rising from death to become life, since water, the first 
appearance of spirit as matter, by a farther condensation under 
the combined influence of heat and cold, becomes the form of 
man, and of things that live. 

Heat gives life to spirit, and cold is the death of it. Heat 
is in spirit while cold is outside, and therefore the form or body 
of it. 

Thought is a formless, indefinable spirit, of which ideas 
are made. It seems absurd to say that an idea is a collection of 
thoughts unless a single thought is first formed in the mind, 
when it becomes material in form, at the same time retaining 
its function of being a light in darkness, as I am an idea of my- 
self in my body, or light in the darkness of my mind. There- 
fore, I am whatever I think myself to be; and to change my way 
of thinking is the transformation of my entire being. 

All forms, everything that is made, is made of spirit. Hence, 



m 



134 THE WAY 

all laws are laws of spirit and made in forms of spirit, and 
nowhere else, since all — even nothing — is spirit in some form or 
other; and, by the contraction of itself, spirit becomes dual in 
form — that is, by contraction it makes a form of itself in itself, 
which we call the Ego in the soul of man. Spirit, being con- 
sciousness, is not conscious until it becomes conscious in some 
form of itself. Spirit, being knowledge itself, cannot know un- 
less it be in some conscious form. And the same may be said of 
mind also; for, although it is made of the most subtile spirit 
known, it cannot think or express its thought unless it be first 
organized in some brain. 

It is ver}^ difficult to understand, and far more difficult to 
explain, how one spirit can become two or more spirits. Matter 
can readily be divided, but spirit is indivisible; but, as it is all, 
it is full of itself and is therefore infinitely great in its own 
estimation, since there is nothing but itself to judge. Spirit, there- 
fore, is circumscribed, surrounded, and limited by its estimate 
of itself, in which it dwells as in a body, from which it cannot 
escape, because its estimate is the deathless, immortal body of it. 
Now the estimate of spirit is common to every grade of spirit, 
from the highest to the lowest, from the coarsest of matter to the 
most ethereal spirit, or thought of it; for spirit is mind as well as 
body. The nature of spirit is to be free; but unrestrained spirit 
loses itself and its power of motion, as the power of steam, the 
spirit of water, is lost in the open air. 

By reason of the body, spirit retains its power and becomes 
full of its estimate of itself, which, centering in the soul, is 
known as the Ego, the undying, moving principle of spirit — the 
life of it. Spirit is a self-sufficient principle. It says, I am, 
this is mine, my body, my mind, my life, my soul, my God, etc.; 
and what it doesn't own it will not get. Hence it is the whole 
self, the I that sees, the I that knows, and the I that thinks it 
knows ; and it is the same in an atom as in the whole circumfer- 
ence. It is that in the soul which appears outward. as body, 



THE WAY 135 



plant, shrub, bush, or tree. And it was this which spake to 
Moses from out the bush that burned but was not consumed. 
Form is a magic thing that is full of magnetic spirit, the life of 
things gestating in its mother nature, the two hierographically 
represented by the symbols "A" and "M," declaring to the 
world, I am that which is, was, ever will be. The Ego in the 
soul is an unchangeable entity, having neither beginning nor 
end, a center of consciousness, as the soul is a center of spirit, 
and as the heart is the center of the nervous system of man, each 
having in itself the power of attraction and repulsion, the father 
and the mother, who organize from spirit, the life of soul, mind, 
and body; and, if that life was retained in the mature man as it 
is in children, fulfilling its function of the evolution of indi- 
vidual life powers, and not as now dissipated in the production 
of offspring, the body of man, like the burning bush, would glow 
with the fervor of fire and would bum eternally without being 
consumed. But as it is, we scatter life, as chaff before the wind, 
in the contact, the wear and the tear, the pain and disease inci- 
dent to the friction of empty souls, minds, nerves, muscles, and 
bodies, in the effort of pretending to live a few short years on this 
earth. The power of life and growth is in form and not outside 
of it. As spirit is formless, in order to have a form it must make 
one of itself. Now spirit is both cold and warm — forces that act 
and react upon each other through spirit, which separates them, 
whereby spirit is made to burn as oil burns in a lamp, the light 
of which is the form of the spirit that burns. Warm spirit evap- 
orates, disappears; but cool, calm, tranquil spirit breeds life in 
itself, the very nature of which is to form a cell, or soul, around 
itself for its own protection, since cold death is a continual men- 
ace to it. 

Now the universe is the soul of nature, containing nothing 
but spirit in which life dwells, continually forcing spirit to work, 
as mother w^crks, in the making of things. As bubbles rise up 
in the fertne'ntatidn of yeast so do forms of life arise in spirit, 



136 THE WAY 



since matter cannot produce till some part of it becomes spirit. 
Everything that is made is made by reflection; and that 
which is made is primarily in that which reflects, or looks upon 
it. Therefore, every material object is a reflection in nature, or 
mind, of I, the Ego, the eye that sees. To see requires the con- 
centration of the light of mind radiating from him who sees. 
Without such concentration there can be no reflection, no thought, 
and no making or objectifying of the things seen in the mind. 
Now those things seen in the mind must depend upon perfect 
concentration for perfection of form and its reflection outwardly. 
That is why so many imperfect machines are made — the inventor 
sees dimly, "as through a glass darkly," according to St. Paul. 
Now that which is in the mind dimly is seen negatively, or as 
almost nothing at all; but, by persistent looking at it, reflecting 
upon it, that which is negatively seen grows plainer, more posi- 
tively visible, until the inventor can lay his hand on it, and 
reproduce it as a positively useful thing. It is, therefore, obvious 
that our positive, tangible, material existence is derived wholly 
from things that exist negatively in us, the same as a tree is said 
to exist in an acorn before it is planted. The question may be 
raised as to how a man can exist in himself before he grows, as 
a tree in an acorn. Now this implied objection applies only in 
part; for, although the foundation of the tree may be in the 
acorn, as the consciousness of man is in the germ of life before 
the man is begotten or the seed planted, nevertheless, the tree 
and the man depend upon the concentration, reflection, and com- 
bination of external forces to enable the tree, or man, to form 
himself. Therefore the tree is not all in the acorn, any more 
than man is all in the germ out of which he grows. ''Let us 
make man in our own image." Now, "our image" is that which 
we make in the progress of thinking. It is ours because we make 
it, the same as any property; and to make man in our image is 
to put man in our image and mould him to fit it in every particu- 
lar. Man sustains the Siame relatidn to the image as the seed in 



THE WAY 137 



an acorn does to the shell it is in. Now, the germ in an acorn 
is consciousness in a negative, unmanifested, invisible, unknown 
condition; and it is the same in regard to the germ out of which 
man grows. 

Is a seed or a tree conscious ? No, but the seed is conscious- 
ness ready to grow, or to become conscious; therefore, conscious- 
ness is the seed of that v/hich becomes conscious. Consciousness 
is the good that is in things, it is there in a negative state until 
we partake of it in eating, drinking, breathing, thinking, or in 
any manner whereby it can enter and make us conscious by its 
presence. It is the image in us that becomes a living soul by 
reason of our breathing, and not the od-force, of which all 
images, or imaginary, negatively-existing things are made. 

Thought is formless substance in a negative or an un- 
developed condition, like the heart of a tree in the seed of it, 
or the inside ring of an onion, or like the soul in a man, out of 
which other souls grow, as rings grow in the formation of a tree 
from the image of it contained in its seed. Every form is a soul 
with another soul in it, the substance out of which a tree, or the 
form of fruit is made in a more interior soul — the germ of all 
growth. The soul of man is an image in another soul, the soul 
of the universe, the heavens surrounding this earth, as the solar 
system does, or as the bark surrounds a tree. Such is the soul — 
an Eidolon — ghost of reality, made manifest in dust, as the 
image of Adam was made. A soul in the over-soul was the com- 
mencement of human life on this earth; and the power that made 
him was the Eidolon of all the conscious beings which had lived 
and died on earth prior to the advent of man, such as were in 
harmony v/ith each other and were willing to unite in opening 
a way in themselves for man to enter and to become the ruler of 
this earth. Consciousness cannot die. It merely withdraws from 
the body when it becomes unfit to be longer a habitation for it. 
Gautama claimed that consciousness was carried in a seminal 
rain from Nirvana — the abtfde df the blessed — when the growing 



138 THE WAY 

earth has attained the condition suitable for the existence of 
of man; but the Chaldeans, a people of equal antiquity with the 
Hindoos, made the descent of man something altogether different 
from that of any other conscious being. They held that the 
physical nature of man, like all animals, grew out of the ground, 
but that his mind descended as a breath of Od into a receptacle 
prepared for its reception, as the Buddhists have a lotus flower, 
on a pond of water, in full bloom ready to catch the falling 
seminal-rain from Nirvana, the abode of the blessed dead who 
have inhabited a previous world. The ideas are obviously similar 
although the phraseology is altogether different; a seminal-rain 
means life falling in water, while a breath of life means life in 
a breath of air, drawTi into the image prepared for its reception. 
Buddha had no God or supreme being at the head of crea- 
tion. Everything developed naturally, while with the Hebrews, 
God did everything in supernatural manner — that is, according 
to the way the Chaldean ideas have been handed down to us in 
the Hebrew Scriptures, provided cur translation is correct. We 
are mainly interested in the effort to find the truth of their ideas, 
and not the way they are expressed; as previously explained, a 
soul is a receptacle and one soul may contain one or more souls 
of an entirely different nature; and, as the image was a hollow 
form, it contained another soul which became alive when a 
breath of life was received from Od, which was, and still is, the 
soul of every atom of which forms are imaged forth, or made 
visible. This plane of being is made up of forms. Remove 
forms and nothing remains. Remove the light from forms, and 
they cast no shadow and show no color; but light in a form shines 
through, and shows an Eidolon, or faint similacrum of itself, 
mingled v/ith some part of the form it illumines and passes out 
of. Without form there is no creation, no order, no system, no 
beauty, no magnitude, no grandeur, no senses in anything, since 
there v;ould be nothing to contain them. The fallacy of estab- 
lishing the existence of a supreme being by mathematics is evi- 



THE WAY 139 

dent from the f ollovang consideration : Number one is supposed 
to contain all other numbers which emanate therefrom. Now, 
No. 2, being an emanation from No. 1, contains two ones, or its 
ovrn value and that of No. 1 also. And No. 3 contains not only 
its ow^n, but the value of those that precede, and all that foilovv'S 
after it, thus showing the last number as the greatest of all, and 
the first number as the least. The absurdity deduced is certainly 
apparent; but, considering existence as ever}1;hing that is — every 
one as equal in value to every other one, no first, no last, no 
beginning or end, no life or death — such an existence obviously 
would not be the existence wt enjoy, or desire to attain to. This 
existence is based upon two opposing principles — the great and 
the small, good and evil, weakness and strength, light and dark- 
ness, male and female. And, coming to the individual, we find, 
as opposing principles, the Ego and the form he is in, the latter, 
with its infinite display of atoms, every one of which is a spirit, 
corresponding to the infinite number of Emanations of number 
One, the Jewish God of the Universe, the I am — the Ego, who 
essays to rule the body and succeeds about as well as Jehovah 
has succeeded with the Jewish people. This is a world of competi- 
tion — "the life of trade" — and of everj'thing else; for without op- 
position no effort is necessar}''^ no clashing of interests, no volcani 
explosions of pent-up energy, no friction and no heat, no gestaiion 
and birth of living beings. This is a positive existence wherein 
we think we know what we are about. The other is a dream- 
land, a negative existence in the minds of men — that border-land 
of nothing out of which the imagination conjures things which 
astonish us. That there is an existence of Equality — where there 
is no high or low, and no strife, is an Eidolon of what will be in 
the evolution of perfect man. But this is not the work of the 
Ego — net what I am, but what I will be — the voice of the mother 
of I am — in the beginning of a new race of true human beings. 



140 



THE WAY 



(i 



I 

To define the Ego is to define Existence. It is the principle 
in man that makes him conscious that he exists. To say it is 
the principle of life, is to say it is the principle that moves things 
— that which is opposed to inertia, or universal stagnation. It 
simply signifies to be conscious. It therefore is a fit representa- 
tion of the fi.rst of all creative power dwelling in each and every 
living form. 

The scriptural story of the serpent is an effort to show the 
beginning of intellectual life as distinguished from sensuous or 
instinctive life, such as the animals have. Sensuous life is emo- 
tional, or a life whose principal law or mode of action is that of 
feeling or sensation. As sensuous life is the ultimate of vege- 
table life, as that is the out-growth of mineral or magnetic life, 
so is intellectual life the out-growth of body, law, mode, or man- 
ner in which life manifests its pov^'cr. Now, as life in the form 
of a snake was the first animate form of life that was able to 
crav/l out of water onto dry land, it is not surprising that the 
serpent should be considered the first-born of that sensuous life 
which is "the mother, in which, and out of which, all things 
take root and grow." Considering, further, that the human form 
is composed mainly of water and that the germ or living sperma- 
tozoon, the impregnating principle of all human mothers, is borne 
from the male to the female in water, and that it grows in the 
waters of the womb, in the first instance to the form of a reptile, 
and next to the human form, having in its make-up all the life 
we know of — in consideration of this, it is not at all surprising 
that the serpent has been universally accepted as a symbol of life 
and wisdom. 



142 THE WAY 



Considering still further, that man contains the germs of all 
life in himself, no matter how uncouth or repulsive his form may 
be, it is not at all strange that the breath of life that God breathed 
into Adam, whereby he became a living soul — a sensuous being — 
should also conceive the idea of being more than a thing having 
power to feel. In view of these facts it is not strange that the 
old Chaldean authors of the Edenic story should have conceived 
the idea that the pioneer of all sensuous life on earth was and is 
also the pioneer or creator of a higher life — one which has no 
limit or lav/s other than such as it creates for its own use. We 
have in the serpent something material and tangible for the 
senses to grasp as the connecting link between a sensuous or a 
vegetable life, which has no freedom of choice or selection save 
what its blind senses lead it to use, and a life whose crowning 
glory is its freedom to choose what it shall do and what it shall 
be. Life can exist without consciousness, the same as matter or 
spirit may exist without motion, or mother exist without produc- 
ing offspring; but consciousness cannot exist except in connec- 
tion vv^ith some kind of mother, since it is the receptive principle 
in mother which attracts germs of life to her, for her impregna- 
tion, and in the case of a human being it is that which makes us 
think and become full of ideas. 

Being in existence, everything is feminine, and therefore 
under the laws of existence of nature ; and while there is only one 
life there are many forms of that life, and each form is a law to 
what it contains, limiting, controlling, and directing whatever 
energy the form contains and calls its own. Life is infinite, in- 
divisible power; therefore, while it is embodied in different 
forms, it is not isolated from the life of other forms, since they 
all connect wherever the Ego (the consciousness of being one) 
departs, which is where the law of individuality inhering in 
the form is broken up, and the form thereby rendered unable to 
control and to use the life it loves so fondly, which is the case 
with all laws that are dead or outgrown. Now the consciousness 



THE WAY 143 

of individuality inheres in all forms, however great or small they 
may be; and each one has embodied in it the consciousness of 
its O'.vn being, which is a germ capable of drawing to itself the 
power to grow and to transform itself, or to change the law or 
the form of its existence, wherever circumstances permit. Con- 
sciousness, therefore, is the soul, the inmost of every object; and 
the image called xA.dam, had an unconscious soul or empty womb 
within, ready to be impregnated by a breath of life, dravm into it 
by the Od-force of the dust, the form or the law its being was 
made of. Now, it is well known that the first form life assumes 
in the womb of woman is that of a serpent, which in time is 
transformed into that of a human being. It is obvious, there- 
fore, that the breath of life that was breathed into Adam v;as the 
same life that Jesus declared himself to be ; and that life, arising 
as it did from the source of all purity and power, was, and still 
is, the Christ, regardless of the form it is confined in. 

Now the feminine principle is the heat in every form; and 
it is that magnetic heat which makes the inner astral, magnetic 
mind and soul — body of all such as truly think, and love the 
Christ in themselves, even if it be in the serpentine form. Every 
thoughtful progressive person knows that there is a perfect man 
somewhere, in existence. Were it not for this conception, in- 
dividual progress could not be ; and the Christ in the soul is con- 
ceived by our ovrn thoughts, our loftiest aspirations of what we 
ourselves desire to become. We become conscious according 
to our thoughts; in other words, we impregnate ourselves by 
thinldng, since consciousness is more sensitive or feminine than 
any other attribute of being. This shows that the great mother 
of our being is controlled by our thoughts, and is made to pro- 
duce as part and parcel of ourselves the very thing we think the 
most about and love the best. This verifies the saying: "As a 
man thinketh in his heart so is he."' Thoughts are of the mmd, 
consciousness is of the heart, or the soul. This item is important. 
Whatever we think about becomes conscious in us ; and the things 



144 THE WAY 

that we ponder and dwell upon the most persistently stay with us 
the longest This outer shell that is named Tom, Dick, or Harry 
is merely a protection of the mother and the life working in her. 
It is called the father of what she produces; but such is not true 
in the real significance of the word, for he also is feminine in 
his relationship to sunxxmding spirit, which passing through 
him sustains the mother and the life he merely feeds and protects, 
while all his power, intelligence, and life is but a reflex from 
what he contains. 

The form of man is not the real perfect man, but is the con- 
necting link between sensuous life and a higher or more intelli- 
gen'.lv creative life, one that has power to complete the image of 
man, of which sensuais life has only laid the foundation. That 
which limits power is the body of man, or the form that contains 
the man himself; and man is that intelligent principle which has 
a purp>ose in being what he is, and in doing what he does. The 
anima ls have this principle to a limited extent; but, so far as is 
known, man is the only being that has any conception of a future 
or a higher life, which he owes to the breath of life that enables 
him to make things out of nothing. All the power and intelli- 
gence that the form manifests is from the man dwelling inside 
the form, and that man is feminine — that is to say, man contains 
the germ of all possibilities, l3i^g latent in his soul, from which 
he draws what he needs by virtue of his inherent weakness, since 
he is nothing but a soul, an empty vortex, were it not for the 
breath of life constantly breathing in and out of him. 

Without weakness, man cannot exist as man; and, without 
harmony between weakness and strength, there can be no perfect 
consciousness, no perfect man. Freedom is above; and the powers 
that make for freedom are in the psychic senses which create 
mind, wherein intellectual life takes its rise from sensuous, or 
animal life. 

There are soul senses, which coimect man with spiritual 
things, as well as material senses connecting with material things. 



THE WAY 145 



and "love lies at the foundation" — ^the Mother of life. But who 
or what his father is may be a question wdth some; but it seems 
to me that the same power that begets and sustains life in an 
individual is the same that begot life in nature. The power that 
sustains and imparts life and vigor to things that need it is will, 
the very antithesis of love, which, being feminine, shows that 
will is masculine — the very source of firmness, unsympathetic 
hardness, and unchanging stability, of which male man, as we 
knov/ him, is a typical representative. Therefore, the law of 
creation, dwelling in all animate things, may be briefly expressed 
as — I-will-love — the triune Godhead surrounding ever}' soul 
in every person. Therefore, the power of salvation "is at hand" 
— the foundation upon which to build immortality in these bodies 
if we will, and love, wisely. 

Will begets wisdom — in love ; and wisdom, the greatest sense 
of the soul, is the Christ Spirit, when at home in the soul — but 
it is for purposes of multiplying life on earth in all manner of 
forms, and of sensations, passions, individual peculiarities, etc., 
etc. Life has become on earth, and in human flesh, the very 
reverse of what it is in the over-soul, and in the human soul; 
from a form of light, life has become the dark matter of all phy- 
sical forms. Ignorance must create from itself, since it has no 
pattern as a guide. Do not forms differ? And where is a pattern 
to be found for the countless differences? 

Genius originates from one's own soul, and whatever is 
made is drawn from himself, hence he is what he makes. God 
spake light into existence, and the word was himself, and there 
was nothing made that was not made by the word, and therefore, 
all things are the word made manifest, and the light in becoming 
manifest is transformed into forms of darkness — combustible 
matter that must burn in order to become light again. Light is 
the germ of life, which will beget in his own body — the fathom- 
less darkness of his spouse. 

The old Chaldean language, from which the Bible was de- 



146 THE WAY 



rived, was made up solely of natural objects, each letter or v*^ord 
having a specific meaning. Thus life was a fish or a serpent, 
the most subtile of all created things. To them it was a symbol 
of creative wisdom, it was the earthly representative of the great 
pulsating will of Existence; therefore, they worshipped the ser- 
pent as the male — the begetting principle — by which life is prop- 
agated on earth. Phallic, or serpent, worship was once uni- 
versal; and Moses was well schooled in all its magic rites and 
ceremonies, whereby they invoked and compelled the attention 
and co-operation of the secret occult forces of nature, of which 
the serpent was chief, as shown at the burning bush, and the 
healing of the plague-stricken in the wilderness by merely lifting 
up his image for the afflicted to look at. Although Moses used 
the serpent in his government of the Jews, he knew full well that 
back of the serpent was a greater being of whom the serpent was 
a mere representative, from whom he derived all his power; and 
in framing his laws he endeavored to prevent the Jews from wor- 
shipping the symbol instead of the unseen reality in the human 
soul — with what success the reader may determine for himself. 
The serpent in the foetus of woman becomes the body of man. 
This is a transformation of the subtile, invisible, living spirit into 
human form. And that is what Jesus of Nazareth was — the 
serpent in human form — the same as everyone. Consciousness 
in a certain forai is called man. In other forms it has other 
names. But consciousness is always the same, regardless of the 
form it occupies; and the serpent is the chief principle, since he 
is the subtile light. Sun, or changing mind of man, the thoughts 
of which make the body. Everything pertaining to mundane 
existence is the reverse of cosmic being, for the simple reason 
that the latter cannot be defined, seeing that we are within, like 
the center in a circle, and can perceive only that which is illumin- 
ated by facing its creations, all else being dark, obscure, mys- 
terious. This negatively-existing consciousness manifests on 
earth and in man as the sense of self-satisfaction, and of super- 



THE WAY 147 



iority, as declared through the lips of Isaiah in describing the 
nature of the Jewish God as follows: "Lo I am God, and beside 
me there is none else, I form the light, and I create darkness. I 
make peace and I create evil. I the Lord do all these things," 
Furthermore, there is no better definition of the Ego— the ser- 
pent God— than that given by Moses in the Old Testament. He 
is proud, jealous, angry, revengeful, warlike, fond of praise, 
unjust, punishing children to the fourth generation for the sins 
the parents commit long prior to their conception, hardening the 
heart of Pharoah on purpose to show forth his power— and for 
glory. The fact is this, the Jews did not believe in a universal 
father God. On the contrary, their God was especially for them. 
He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of no one 
else. He made the law, "Thou shalt not kill," and then en- 
couraged his chosen people to slaughter innocent women and 
children. He is changeable, repented that he had made man, 
admitting that he had made a mistake, showing his serpent 
nature. He loved Jacob, although he knew him to be a thief 
who had robbed Esau of his birth-right, and resorted to magical 
arts to rob his father-in-law of his cattle. But why multiply? 
His character is the reverse of what Jesus taught. Wrath and 
vengeance are no evidence of wisdom, nor is the poison of the 
serpent any evidence of the wisdom he symbolizes and embodies 
deep buried beneath many layers of repulsive appearances that he 
has power to shed in due time, as we know he does. I will, love, 
wisdom, is the motto of every progressive being. But such is 
not the Jewish law, the law given to Adam forbade the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge, and therefore it is the law of ignorance, bond- 
age, slavery. Sensuous life is non-progressive. But intellectual 
life has no bounds. It means absolute freedom and eternal 
progress, hence it is a plain contradiction of the first law of 
being, viz., love or attraction, which is the fountain main-spring, 
or body, in which will works to beget power. Bear in mind this 
important truth, viz., the laws that govern one thing govern all; 



148 THE WAY 

and therefore the law of propagation applies as well to spiritual 
as to material things, and hence I assert that will working in love 
begets life, even without a corporeal existence. 

As a vacuum is a necessity' of motion, or the cause of attrac- 
tion, it is plain that attraction, or love, is the weakest of all 
known things. Is there anything weaker than nothing? And 
what does emptiness, hunger, and want suggest but weakness? 
Things fail for w'ant of strength. Will is strength but love is 
vreakness. If love was strength, will-power would be repelled 
from it, and there would be no propagation, since love cannot 
produce without strength, and will gives strength to the weak- 
ness of love. Now, will is the power in seed that makes it grow 
Vv'hen planted, and seed contains life otherwise known as the 
Ego, the soul of man, which Jesus claimed to be. Seed grows 
from weakness to strength, from the embr}'onic serpent, symbol 
of wisdom, to the form of man, whereby to manifest in some 
degree that intelligence and wisdom which a germ of life con- 
tains in fullness and completeness. 

Love is the principle of accumulation, getting and keeping. 
It centralizes energy and thus makes souls. It is therefore the 
feminine or propagative principle par excellence, but it never 
gives. Giving is the crossing — contradictor}' or denial of the 
power and right of the law of restraint, or affirmation. To affinii 
is to fix and establish as a law; and its opposite is the mental 
power of denial which, in the Scriptures, is allegorically called 
the serpent — a power in the mind of Eve that said to her, "Yc 
shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day thou 
eatest thereof then shall your eyes be opened, and ye shall become 
as God, knowing good and evil." Here is a plain contradiction, 
or denial, of an affirmation, or law of being, and the introduction 
of the law of freedom to take its place. This allegory- is an effort 
to explain the beginning of intellectual life, the life of freedom 
and of progress, as opposed to that of the slavery of sensuous 
love — tlie introduction of wise love — a love that can see, instead 



THE WAY 149 

of a blind love, whose eyes are closed. How man came to be 
what he now is, is an unsolved problem. I do not think that 
man is a special creation as set forth in the Bible. It seems to 
me far more logical to think that his weakness at birth results 
from the weakness and degeneracy of man in his efforts to be 
free by improving upon the sexual instincts of sensuous life. It 
is reasonable to suppose that as man evolved from the animal 
kingdom and increased in freedom from experiences he must 
have learned, that he had power over the female to divert her 
desires from her ov/n instincts to those of her husband, and as his 
instincts know no limit when unrestrained, sexual excesses pro- 
duced degeneration, and retrogression of the creative powers in- 
herent in sensuous life, to the extent of almost destroying the in- 
stinctive power of the germ of life in gestation, with the result of 
producing helpless offspring. Although we have the animal 
creation in our composition, it has, in a measure, lost power, 
which we are slow to regain. In the animal kingdom the female 
rules her own body, not so in human life, the female sells her- 
self, or gives herself away. Wisdom is the highest of all life's 
attributes, and the love that is free, must be a wise love. The 
crossing, otherwise called the "crux," or the crucifixion, of the 
law of love gives freedom to life by the death of the serpent body 
— the shedding of the skin, or appearance of the serpent and 
revealing the Christ, or free spirit-body entombed therein. Life 
becomes free only by the fulfilling of the lav/ of love, or of 
accumulation. Too much of a good thing is as fatal as too little. 
Therefore the law is, "give to everyone that asks of thee, and he 
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." These were the 
words of the Christ speaking through the lips of the Serpent 
Jesus. "By their works shall ye know them." And by his works 
we know that Jesus w^as the serpent most of the time of his active 
life. I am fully aware that the serpent is called Satan, or the 
Devil, but there is ao devil except human devils — and these the 



150 THE WAY 

Christ within casts out, as the serpent sheds his skin. That 
Jesus was both human and Divine, as every reasonable man is, 
seems to be true. From his mind he was human, manifesting the 
serpent when he cursed the fig-tree, whipped the brokers out of 
the Temple, insulted the Aristocrats by calling them hypocrites 
and declaring prostitutes as superior to them, and made hatred 
of parents a necessity of his followers; while from his soul ha 
manifested the divine — the Christ life — which is essential to 
health and a true and immortal life to be lived here and now on 
this earth. As the story of the Garden of Eden is certainly an 
allegory, it may be that the story of Jesus is also an allegory. We 
know the first to be a myth; and, as the latter is a continuation 
of the same theme, its character is undoubtedly the same. We 
know nothing of an absolute ruler of the universe only as we 
know it in ourselves, as the unchanging consciousness of being, 
which manifests as the Ego — which reflected in the mirage of the 
body-— the mind — which we see as a suggestive power greater 
than we ourselves, which Jesus called the Father who did the 
works that he himself was known to do. The works he did that 
he ascribed to the Father were greater than ordinary man can do; 
and when asked about it he declared that the power came from 
a greater life than he himself, although he claimed to be, in a 
lesser degree, the same life. Stripped of all priestly cant and 
pretense, the whole subject of power stands revealed as life, and 
nothing but life; and the only way to acquire power is to get more 
life. The methods by which it is acquired are plainly indicated 
as coming through our mental aspirations, which draw from the 
over-soul by means of our weakness, childlike trust and belief. 
If there is any value in crucifixion it certainly is ours by being 
done in our own souls in the acquisition of more power and a 
greater life, rather than in the death of what we already have. 
\\'c are already dead — let us come to life by learning how 
truly to live. There is no truth in the idea of a general resurrec- 
tion, and a day of Judgment. There is no resurrection except 



THE WAY 151 

birth, and no Judgment of your actions except your own. God 
is in you if anywhere; and, when you forgive yourself for what 
you have done, you can rest assured that God has also forgiven 
you — for then are you and God agreed — and harmony is the 
only atonement. You are self-sufficient, proud, strong, and arro- 
gant by reason of the serpent in your flesh. He must be humili- 
ated, made weak, lifted up and out of his skin, and your weak 
life must be indrawn and united with your greater life — the 
Father in your own soul — and "greater works shall ye do because 
I, the ego, go to the Father." 

All life comes to our love through the will, or our willing- 
ness, which is the turning of the other cheek when smitten, or 
the giving what you have to those who ask, or doing good for 
evil. This indeed is the crossing — crossifying, or crucifying, of 
our natural instincts. It is impossible to crucify the Christ since 
intellectual life cannot suffer or die. Jesus, the outer man, was 
crucified in order to give freedom to the inner man — the Christ. 
Death is merely the indrawing of the life from its outer cover- 
ing like the recoil of the flesh from the contact of fire. That 
which causes pain, only shows our incompleteness, or the small- 
ness undeveloped, or unripe condition of the life or serpent in 
us. God does not suffer, neither does the Christ — the son of life 
itself. When his "time was fully come" — ^when the serpent in 
the man Jesus was fully grown, and ready to shed his skin — 
then was he crucified, and not before. 

He who is full of the Christ spirit cannot suffer pain, be 
sick, or die. But he cannot be full of the Christ spirit so long 
as the serpent is coiled around him; and, so long as the mind 
is fixed upon mundane things, the serpentine coils of life will 
not relax or let go. The power of Christ, or the intellectual life, 
is the will — the volitional power of man — only a small fraction 
of which actuates an individual, while will "per-se" — that which 
is not individualized — extends infinitely beyond creative bounds. 
T6 be what you will to be, is to haVe all power; but to be power 



152 TKE WAY 

itself is to be embodied will wherein only is absolute freedom, 
which cannot be acquired by amthing less than a perfect man. 

Will, therefore, being superior to sensation, is the deathless 
principle of life: and, hence, it is the father of it, while desire, 
or love, is its mother. 

It follows, therefore, that culture, or the acquisition, cf 
will is to be desired above all things — and herein is the value of 
the weakness of love — the mother of life — ^manifest. Surely, 
weakness supers in giving birth to will, which is the only way of 
life to freedom and p>ower. 

Sickness, pain, disease, and death have no place in the 
strong will, of which the serpent is its lowest manifestation in 
the mother of life. 

The Ego is the serpent coiled up in the soul of ever}- per- 
son, and from himself issues the poison of himian life. But 
vain is the idea that he can be killed. He is deathless, for all 
creation rests upon him. He is the big I. and all else is the 
little you. Is there amthing more contemptible than a senseless 
Egotist? One who is a boasting bragart — one who loves praise 
and never tires of self-laudation? .\nd yet we. as pretended 
followers of the Christ, worship just such a being — and our 
lives are moulded in a mother poisoned by such slime as his 
praises. No wonder we are like him — it is the way of life I 



THE WAY 153 



^Sim 



154 THE WAY 



FUNDAMENTAL LAWS 

THE ROSE CROSS ORDER 

For sixty-eight years the Exalted Fraternity of the Rose 
Cross has met in Sacred Convocation, teaching its neophytes 
some of the mysteries, and giving them a part of its sacred phil- 
osophy. This has always been done in secret session, none of 
the work being allowed to reach the public. 

During the entire month of June, 1916, the members were 
again convened in Sacred Convocation. Not only was the secret 
work conducted as in all preceding Convocations, but lectures, 
prepared for the Order, were given twice daily. 

At this Convocation the members voted to publish the les- 
son-lectures in book form, a certain sum of money being donated 
by them for this purpose. 

Many members of the Order were present, several of them 
coming from foreign countries, others from distant points in the 
United States. They came to meet each other, to receive the 
Mystic Degrees and to hear the lectures. MANY HUNDRED 
DOLLARS WERE PAID OUT BY SOME OF THEM FOR 
THE PRIVILEGE OF RECEIVING WHAT WE OFFER 
YOU IN BOOK FORM FOR LESS THAN THE COST OF 
PUBLICATION. 

Contents 

A complete report of the place, and the conferring of the 
Ancient Degrees "Sons of Osiris." 

THE GREAT SEAL. For the first time the mystic meaning and 
significance of the Gi'eat Seal of the United States. This lecture 
was prepared by Grace Kincaid Morey, a graduate of Oberlin 
College, who has given many years to the subject. At the request 



156 THE \\-AY 

of legislators, preparations are now being made to issue this lec- 
ture in booklet form for circulation among senators and members 
of Congress. 

A SOUL sciEXCE PRIMER. A lecture covering the funda- 
mental teachings of the Order of the Illuminati. Thousands of 
copies of this lecture have been issued in booklet form. It deals 
convincingly with the four-fold nature of man — Body, Mind, 
Spirit and Soul. 

CODE or ETHICS. An outline of a system of instructions for 
the young, that each child may reach its highest development. 

SEN'. A question asked throughout the ages. X^'hat consti- 
tutes sin is ansvrered according to the standards of the Illu- 
minati. 

REixcARXATiON. An Outline of what the Order teaches 
about this great subject. 

EVOLUTION. The reason of Reincarnation. 

ixiTiATiON. ^^llat it accomplishes and the teachings of 
the Order in reference to it. 
Other Chapters: 

TELE SECOND C02^IIXG OF CHRIST. 

AUTHORITY NTRSUS IXDRTDUALITY. 

PRAYER. 

BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, SOUL. 

INV'OCATION OE THE HIERARCHIES. A most important sub- 
ject for the consideration of the occult student. 

THE SONS OF OSIRIS. Their work and teachings. 

A book of 205 pages. Printed on best book paper and 
beautifullv bound. PRICE $1.25. 



THE ROSE CROSS COLLEGE 

The Rose Cross Order held its annual Convocation for 1916 
during the month of June. Early in July it became necessar>' 



THE WAY 157 

to call a special Convocation of the Fraternity for the month of 
October. 

During the time the Convocation was in extra session, lec- 
tures were given on subjects of interest and development to those 
present. Before the Convocation closed it voted that a certain 
amount of money should be contributed towards the publication 
of these lectures in book form, to be sold at a reasonable rate to 
those interested in the great Order, their philosophy and teach- 
ings. 

Contents 

KNIGHTS OF CHR^AXRY, or Order of the Holy Grail. This 
chapter contains in detail, information concerning the principles 
and teachings of the Order. Combined with this will be found 
the mystic interpretation of the storr, "Eros and Psyche," and of 
";>.ierlin," one of the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table. 

TEMPLE DEDICATION SERVICE of the Church of Illumination. 
For the first time this is given in full, and worth the price of the 
book to seekers of the Mystic — of Soul Illumination. 

THE MAGI. A dissertation of the teachings, and the pro- 
ceedings of the Order of the ^lagi, and "Priests of ^lelchizadek." 
Those interested in Magian philosophy will profit in the study 
of this chapter. 

Lectures 

OUR WORK. It is imperative that the Illuminati work, not 
only for the good of the student, but for humanit}' in general. 

THE CHURCH OF ILLUMINATION. \^'hat Illumination means 
to the student and to humanity. \Yhat it stands for, and what it 
teaches. 

SUCCESS AND F.AiLL'RE. The reason why men and women 
succeed or fail. Worth the attention of every human being. 

THE ALL-SEEING EYE. All students of thc occult are inter- 



158 THE WAY 

ested in the inyster>- of the All- Seeing Eye. A broad glimpse of 
the svTnbolic meaning is given in this chapter. 

EUGENICS. A comprehensive view of the system of Eugenics 
taught by the Sacred College. The misen-, as well as happiness, 
of the world is found in the use or abuse of the creative function. 
Occult students know the desirability of knowledge on this sub- 
ject. 

OBEDIENCE. It is hard for the students of the \^'^stem 
hemisphere to comprehend the full meaning of this word. It is 
of extreme importance that instruction be implicitly obeyed 
during period of development. Reasons given. 

THE CHiasT BIRTH. Illumination and the Christie Birth 
have one and the same meaning. A student may reach Illumina- 
tion if he obeys instructions. 

THE TO^^T.'R OF THOUGHT. It is impossible to doubt the 
power of thought. The subject demands serious study that an 
understanding of the power may be reached. 

This is a partial list of the contents of the book. 

216 large pages, printed on the best book paper and beau- 
tifully bound in cloth. 

$1.25 per copy. ORDER AT ONXE. 



THE SACRED COLLEGE 

THE AN'CIEXT MYSTERIES 

The title of this latest book of interpretations will cause the 
Occult Student more than a thrill of interest. In it will be found 
the stories of the Knights of Chivalry of the time of King Arthur 
and the Round Table, and the relation they bear to the Mysteries 
of the Ancients. 

The stories of the Knights of the Routid Tabk have never 



THE WAY 159 



ceased to exercise a spell over the reader. In them are found 
the ICnights who personified the extremes of good and evil and 
all the intermediate passions. 

To the ww-initiated, these stories combine human action 
with the inhabitants of the unseen worlds, with charms and in- 
carnations. But to the Initiated these tales take on a deeper 
significance. The M3'Steries and Mythologies they contain are 
so many keys by which are unlocked strange truths. 

Besides the interpretations already mentioned, there is an, 
intensely interesting chapter on Pope's ''Rape of the Lock.'* 
Pope, a Rosicrucian, placed many occult truths before his read- 
ers, knowing full well that only the initiated would gain more 
than a superficial meaning. 

All the interpretations in this volume are written by a Rosi- 
crucian in the light of Rosicrucian Lore. 

Contents 

THE FETE OF THE ROSES. The Easter or June Festival of 
the Church of Illumination. Given for the first time. 
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. An Interpretation. 
THE SANGREAL, OR HOLY GRAIL. Its Mystic meaning. 
SIR GALAHAD. The Icssou he teaches us. 

SIR GAWAIN. 

SIR LAUNCELOT. The most faithful of the Knights. 

SIR PERCEVAL. 

SIR BOHORT. 

SIR LAUNCELOT RESUMED. 

SIR GALAHAD RESUMED. 

SIR agrivain's TREASON. A Deep Lesson for all students. 

MORTE d'ARTHUR. 

The contents of this book formed the instructions given be- 
fore the students of the Sacred College convened in Sacred Con- 
vocation during the months of May and June, 1917^ 



6^V -7 iB. - e 



160 THE WAY 



Printed on extra fijie 80-lb. book paper, beautifully bound 
in silk cloth, gold back and side stamp. A real book for the 
student. $1.25 per copy. ORDER AT ONXE. 

Address all orders to 

PHILOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
'•Beverly HaU'' 

Quakerto'^iMi, Pa. 

XoTE — A complete catalog of all our publications is in the 
hands of the printers If interested, let us know so that we may 
book you for a copy of it. 



